Wish Upon A Falling Star
by Thoughts And Pondering
Summary: Written Pre HBP. When twelve year old Harry is locked in his bedroom after the pudding incident, he wishes once more for one of his parents. Little does he know that this time it’s going to come true. Lily is back,it's time to recreate a family.
1. Wish

Wish Upon A Falling Star

Summary: When twelve-year old Harry is locked in his bedroom after the pudding incident, he wishes for one last time for one of his parents. Little does he know that this time it's going to come true.

A/N: Yes, I know this plot is over used, especially recently but I'm trying to change it from the norm. This story is set in second year, hence Harry doesn't know about Sirius.

And yes, the prologue is short, but the actual chapters will be about a thousand words long.

Prologue: 

"And if you try to magic yourself out, they'll expel you!" laughed Vernon Dursley as he practically threw his twelve-year-old nephew into his bedroom. To an uneducated onlooker, it would appear to be a very strange household. But that uneducated onlooker would be right. How many houses in suburban Britain housed wizards?

Harry Potter, unwanted nephew of Vernon and Petunia Dursley, sat on his bed where only an hour before he had been conversing with a strange green creature (who called himself Dobby) had warned him not to go back to Hogwarts.

He had dismissed the very idea as completely and utterly stupid, why pass the only place where he had friends. _A family. _He might have enemies like Draco Malfoy and his two pet gorillas Gregory Goyle and Vincet Crabbe, but he had his two best friends who had been through every problem and challenge of his first year with him.

But why couldn't have a family, a real family, outside of Hogwarts. The Dursleys didn't count, even though they were related to him by blood, most loving guardians didn't treat their charges like something that the cat threw up.

He turned around, and stared out the small window of his bedroom. He only referred to it as his bedroom because it was a room, which had a bed that he slept him. It didn't have the familiar feel that he assumed most pre-teens had. They probably had posters of their favourite sport teams (like Dudley) adorning their walls and bright colorful rugs covering up abandoned chocolate wrappers carefully hidden underneath.

Why couldn't he, Harry, have any bedroom decorations? Why did he live in a room so barren and plain it would probably be mistaken for storage space? But he knew the answer to that question. It was because he didn't have a family.

He was startled out of his musings because he saw something moving outside. A beautiful star was falling earthward. He had often wished for a parent. Maybe it was time to actually wish on something that was deemed lucky. He remembered a boy from his Muggle school telling him how he wished upon a falling star that his parents would by him a new video game for Christmas, and he told how it came true.

This was more important than any video game. Harry thought to himself. As he gazed out the window once more, and sawthat the trees about to cover up his view of the star, so he opened his mouth…

…And he wished.

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A/N Next chapter we see the results of the wish. Please review!

Thoughts and Pondering.


	2. Problems

Summary: When twelve-year old Harry is locked in his bedroom after the pudding incident, he wishes for one last time for one of his parents. Little does he know that this time it's going to come true.

A/N: I'm typing this up directly after the prologue due to its shortness. I'm also assuming Godric's Hollow is a house, but there is no evidence in the books. I've also realised that I'm now on three people's author alert lists. Three! I'm not sure which story though…

Chapter One: Problems

A few seconds after Harry made his wish, the master bedroom at Godric's Hollow let off a huge bang. It had been revamped a few years ago, but it seemed that the Muggles had no problems living in house which two murders had taken place a decade ago.

Lily Potter was leaning against the window sill, and she did _not _know how she had gotten there. She wandered near the door where a sandy-haired kid was walking down the hallway. She made no attempt to hide, because it would have been futile. She merely stood there, frozen, while the kid stared at her.

After what seemed a century (but in truth was only a minute) the kid screamed. "MUM! THERE'S SOME CRAZY WOMAN IN THE HOUSE!"

There was the sound of running footsteps and a stout brown haired woman appeared next to her son, looking slightly crazy and wielding a rolling pin in her hand.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"I-I-I'm Lily Potter," she stammered, and regaining some of her courage she asked, "Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house!"

"Your house? Excuse me, this is myhouse!"

"B-but I live here with my son and my hus-" Lily faltered. "No…they…they…died." She said in realisation. "And…" she thought, thinking back to the last thing she could remember. "I should be dead too!" "THEY'RE DEAD!" she screamed, half in hysterics. "AND I COULDN'T PROTECT HIM! AND IT'S ALL MY FAULT!"

The Muggle woman exchanged glances with her son. "Mikey…could you please grab the phone."

The boy named Mikey scurried down the hallway.

"You think I'm crazy, don't you." Lily said quietly. "YOU THINK I'M CRAZY!" she yelled, grabbing the woman's shoulders and shaking them thoroughly.

Mikey ran into the doorway again, but stopped as he saw Lily shake his mum.

"Mum?" he asked.

The woman gave her response by lifting up the rolling pin and hitting Lily in the head with it. Knocking her unconscious, the last thing she saw was the Muggle woman looking grimly at her.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

When she regained consciousness, she saw…bars? "Oh…no…" she groaned. She was in the last place on earth that she wanted to be, though she couldn't think of a place on earth where she wanted to be without her husband and son. She was in a cell, most likely a holding cell in a Muggle police station. And sure enough, there was a Muggle policeman standing at the door of her cell. He gestured at her to stand up.

He didn't seem like a talking, sensitive man. He was a huge, bulky man and reminded her vaguely of someone. She racked her brain and then she remembered. Two Slytherin bullies who had been in her seventh year when she had entered her first, Crabbe and Goyle. She still remembered the first time Jam-. She faltered again. She didn't want to think about it. Because the truth was slowly setting into her. "James and Harry are dead. They're not coming back. Dead people did not come back to life overnight, they didn't come back in a year and they certainly didn't come back after a decade. She started crying, something she hadn't done in over a year. The tears flowed down her cheeks steadily.

"That's nice and all, missy, but when that woman said she found a crazy woman in her house, she sure wasn't joking! C'mon now." The policeman raised an eyebrow and clutched his stomach, presumably to stop himself from laughing.

Lily pushed herself to her feet and followed the policeman into what must be an interrogation room. She watched as the policeman sat down in a cheap chair at an even cheaper table. She sat down on the other side and stared at him.

"You ain't trying to hurt me with your stare? 'Cause it ain't gonna work. It's time to ask you some questions, to see if you're as crazy as that woman claimed. First of all, what year is it?"

Lily rolled her eyes. Obviously since yesterday was Halloween, therefore today was the first of November.

"It's the 1st of November 1981." she replied confidently.

"Are you sure?" the policeman cocked an eyebrow.

"No, it's 1911." she replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Are you sure?" The policeman repeated.

She was sick of this policeman's mind games. They were going to _give_ her a reason for being crazy. She wanted to get out and look for someone, maybe Remus or Sirius to tell her why she was here. Didn't she see that killing curse hit her?

"Let's ask another question." The policeman said sweetly. "Where do you live?"

"I live in Godric's Hollow."

"Yes, and I live in Disneyland. I want a proper address please."

Lily felt her heart jump into her throat. Because even after 3 months of living there (in hiding, mind you) she had never bothered to learn the address. She was extremely frustrated. If only she had her wand.

"I DON'T KNOW!" she screamed.

"Well that concludes your interrogation. I will bring you back to your cell and you will be moved tomorrow," the policeman replied, suddenly formal.

He walked her out of the room and back to her cell. She sat on the even cheaper bed. She only had one thing in mind. She had to get out. Lily looked around the room and she saw a small window. "Excellent." She muttered quietly, for she had formed a plan.

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A/N: Next chapter will be up most likely next week. In the next chapter, we find out about Lily's plan. Will it be successful? You'll have to read the next chapter to find out! Please review!

Thoughts And Pondering.


	3. Lipstick and Napkins

A/N: Even though I shouldn't be online right now, and should be instead be doing homework, I typed this anyway. Writing certainly beats homework. Next update will be this weekend due to school camp.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter today, I won't own it tomorrow and I won't own itnext year and I will never _ever _own it.

Lipstick and Napkins 

When Lily looked out the window she had seen a couple of pigeons roosting peacefully on the trees surrounding the police station. Even though she utterly loathed pigeons she was thankful they were there. They might not be owls, but she still hoped they could be used as delivery birds. But she still needed something to write on, and more importantly, something to write with.

She looked around her cell but she didn't see anything that fitted her requirements.

"Breakfast time." droned a voice from outside her cell. She turned around. The irritating policeman was there, holding a plate of a weird gray mush that Lily couldn't identify some tomato sauce in a packet and a glass of water. A plastic spoon was carelessly shoved in the mush, and seemed to be sinking further down every second. A napkin was next to the plate of mush.

By the presentation of her breakfast, it did not look edible, and she certainly did not intend to eat it.

"Eat up." said the policeman in his bored voice. "I'll come and collect it once your finished." He left quickly, possibly because he thought Lily's madness was catching.

Lily sat down on her bed again, in an attempt to think. Then, when the answer came to it she couldn't believe she hadn't though of it before. She had yet to search her pockets.

But after she turned them out, they weren't as promising as she thought. A lollipop stick and a tube of lipstick. Hadn't she bought this lipstick only yesterday? When Har- she stopped, since she had started crying again.

"Calm down Lily." she told herself. "Crying won't get you anywhere, and you want to get out."

She looked out of her cell bars, for inspiration. She saw a clock, it's hands pointed to show it was 9:30. Next to it was a calendar, which was on August and only the first day was crossed out. No matter how hard she tried, she could not see the year.

Lily concluded that the police station didn't update that particular calendar very often.

She turned back to the food. Now the sun was shining on it, it looked like vomit.

Here she was, Lily Potter. Witch without her wand, and about to be carted off to the loony bin. Add in having to eat some…thing…that resembled vomit for breakfast

This would have been bad in any situation, but in this one it was much, much worse. She was supposed to be dead, and her husband and her son were. She had to contact someone in twelve hours, or risk spending the rest of her life in solitary confinement in a room with padded walls and little men in white coats. Things were _not _looking up.

She looked at the things in her cell again. She could use the lipstick to write with, but she was sure the pigeons would _not _appreciate being written on.

She made a mental list of the things the policeman had brought in. Mush, glass, napkin…napkin?

It was so obvious; it was staring her in the face. Since she had been so caught up in the…disgustingness…of the mush, she had completely ignored the napkin. She wrote a rushed message on the napkin. Leaning against the wall she wrote a rushed message.

_This is your little red flower. I know this seems odd after not seeing you for so long, but I am at a police station near my new house and I need you come to bail me out. I will pay for full. Please, find it in your heart to come and save me!_

_Your little red flower._

She ran halfway to the window, but stopped as she realised that she didn't have anything to tie it up with. When she stopped the white gold necklace she was wearing with an emerald pendant whacked her in the face.

The answer to her question had just whacked her in face. Her necklace. She hated the thought of giving it away, since her mother had given it to her for her fifth birthday. It had always been one of her most cherished possessions. Lily fingered it slowly. But if it was a choice between wasting her second chance at life and giving it away, she had to use it.

She ran to the window and called for a pigeon. It took her a few tries, but eventually a pigeon flew over to her and perched itself on the windowsill. She just seemed to have that knack with animals, especially the flying type.

Lily tied the letter quickly and her emerald green eyes lingered upon the pendant. She whispered the name of the recipient to the pigeon and sent it on it's way before she could regret using her necklace.

There wasn't much to do now, except wait. So she lay down on the bed, and even though it's brown cover scratched her legs horribly, she managed to cry herself to sleep.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Lily was awoken by the irritating policeman. "It's time to leave," he yelled from outside her cell.

Lily felt her heart stop. No. All her attempts to escape, and they were all for naught. Seems like the Muggles would get their way. She could compare this to the witch burnings so many years ago. A witch was being condemned by Muggles with only circumstantial proof.

She did one last act of defiance. She simply refused to stand up, even though her legs were unbearably itchy.

"Don't make this difficult for me, missy." the policeman said in a suddenly threatening voice.

She only moved slightly, to scratch her leg. She saw someone walk into the hallway. Her heart leapt, but it kept beating loudly. And to her pleasure it was exactly the person she expected to see.

"Lily…no…it simply cannot be…it's…not…true…must stop hallucinating." the person moaned. "IT CAN'T BE!" the person promptly fainted.

During this exchange, the Muggle policeman watched with much amusement.

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Well…that was rather odd chapter. Thankfully, Lily will be out of the police station by the next chapter.

Next Chapter: We learn who "person" is and the chapter after that, Lily meets Harry…if all goes to plan.

You can guess in a review if you want. Whoever wins can get…the year old sandwich in the bottom of my bag! Doesn't that motivate you?

Review Responses:

Yami's Guardian Angel: Yukita: That's wise, since I know who you are. Especially since I was sitting next to you as you wrote this review.

IamSiriusgrl: Yeah, I like this plot too, so what better than to write a story about it?

kill bill rocks, ceriberry and sarasa: Thank-you for your reviews and I am also interested in seeing how this story develops, since I have a main outline but all the little bits and pieces have not yet made their way in.

belle granger: There are a couple of stories where Lily comes back rather than James, but they are hugely outnumebered by James-comes-back-to-life ones.


	4. Blood Is Thicker Than Water

Thanks for the reviews! Review responses are down the bottom, per usual. I am now on 11 people's author alert lists. I would like to say thank-you to everyone who has read this story even if they haven't reviewed.

Now on with the story!

Lily looked into the hallway; her bottle green eyes went past the irritating policeman and landed on the woman lying in the hallway.

Because lying in the hallway, in her neat, mother-like dress was Petunia Dursley. Petunia sat up rubbing her eyes and suddenly hugged Lily. She was crying (a feat that had not occurred for nearly a decade) and as she hugged her, she mumbled "I'm sorry Lily. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to…I…was scared…I'm so sorry…please forgive me! Especially about Harry…I didn-"

Lily pulled out of the hug upon hearing Harry's name. Because she had started to cry again. Her green, long sleeved T-shirt looked like it had been outside in a rainstorm. The policeman looked disgruntled. Since he was standing in the doorway of Lily's cell, he had been caught in the middle of the hug.

"Why are you talking about Harry?" Lily asked. "HE'S DEAD, ALRIGHT? HE IS NOT COMING BACK!" Lily ran to the door but her escape was blocked because the policeman was standing in the doorway. He didn't look very amused. The poor soul had probably had his first hug in twenty years. And it wasn't voluntary either.

"Call me ignorant, but can someone explain what the hell is going on here?" the policeman yelled, he looked thoroughly frightened now, he seemed desperate to just leave and take some aspirin and pretend this never happened.

"LET ME THROUGH!" Lily screamed and attempted to push the policeman aside. This attempt was futile since the policeman was at least two heads taller than she was and was quite obviously much stronger.

"Harry's not dead." Petunia said softly.

"You don't get it, do you? HARRY IS DEAD! You don't have to pretend to care, I already know you don't care, by the face you _never _visited, you never came when I invited you to Harry's first birthday party and you never even wrote a SINGLE LETTER! And now your trying to tell me Harry is alive. I'm not an idiot, if I didn't die, Harry did."

"If I didn't care, I wouldn't have come here. If I didn't care, I wouldn't have taken in Harry after you died. Do you know what Vernon wanted to do? HE WANTED TO LEAVE HARRY IN SOME BACK ALLEY IN DOWNTOWN LONDON! I cared, Lily, I did."

Lily's head was spinning from all these new revelations. She chose to voice the one question she had when she woken up in next to the windowsill in Godric's Hollow. The same question she had been trying to answer in all the time she was in the holding cell.

"What do you mean, 'after I died'?" she asked fearfully, and she seemed to shrink back as she voiced the question, because she was scared the answer mightn't be the one she wanted to hear.

"It's been ten years Lily, I can't explain why you're here now, but you were dead…I saw…at your funeral," Petunia let out a small sob here "Your eyes, they were glazed over…they were dead. And the most suprising thing…your face…it was surprised."

"My _funeral_?" Lily shook her head. "This is unreal. This is unreal. This is unreal."

"Lily, maybe we should discuss this at my house. At any rate, it would be better than standing in this hallway. I think the policeman over there has been mentally scarred." The policeman absent-mindedly nodded his head.

Petunia grabbed Lily's wrist and dragged her into the main room of the police station. The policeman trailed behind as Petunia pushed her way past a sad looking man holding a broken pair of sunglasses and a policeman holding on to three youths who looked slightly like punks.

When she reached the counter, she took a note out of her purse and threw it down on the counter. Still holding onto Lily's wrist, Petunia ran out of the door, her hat falling off her perfect blonde hair as she did so, and one off the punk youths laughed. Lily, who was still being dragged by Petunia, fell over a dead household plant. The youth howled with laughter.

The policeman leaned on the counter and thought to himself.

"I think _I'm _going crazy!"

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Lily had reached Number Four, Privet Drive. And she did not like it at all. To her, a house was not a house without a little bit of clutter proving that people did actually live there. In Petunia's house, she felt like she had wandered into a display home by mistake. But she and Petunia had always been different as kids, and it wouldn't be different now. Especially since they had hated each other. But Petunia had just proved that blood is thicker than water, and she had come to save her.

Lily watched as Petunia prepared some tea, and sat down in an armchair. Still watching her, Lily followed her lead. Petunia sipped her tea with her pinky up in the air. A nervous habit that Lily had known for all of her life.

She lifted her tea off the tea tray Petunia was holding and her hand shook. She managed to lift it to her mouth and take a sip. It was much to hot but she couldn't taste the tea. She had questions and she wanted answers.

"What do you mean you took Harry in?" Lily finally asked.

Petunia shook shiftily side to side. She didn't answer.

"Petunia?"

"He's upstairs." Petunia said tonelessly.

"My baby? He's upstairs!" Lily made to run to the stairs, but was stopped by Petunia.

"He's not your baby anymore. It's been nearly eleven years."

"Nearly eleven…" Lily's knees shook. "Nearly…eleven…eleven…"

"And…you must forgive me…but…but…but…but…we…haven't…really been that kind to him."

Lily's temper flared. She suddenly stood up, knocking the pot of now cold tea to the floor. She grabbed Petunia's shoulders and shook them hard.

"YOU HURT MY BABY!" she screamed. "I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! ALL THESE YEARS YOU CALLED ME A FREAK…BUT YOU, YOU'RE THE REAL FREAK! YOU…YOU…YOU…" Lily was running out of words to say so she resorted to something she didn't really wanted to do. She punched Petunia in the jaw.

She squealed loudly and upset her cup of tea, making it land on the floor. Just then the door opened.

"Petunia! Darling, I'm home!" He walked into the lounge room and screamed a rather girlish scream. But it suddenly turned to a low, threatening voice.

"What are you doing with my wife?"

It was quite obvious that Vernon didn't recognize her. Though Lily remembered him. He was just as purple as usual, making him look like a big, swollen bruise. Exactly like the same time she had seen him. (had it really been eleven years?)

"You don't remember me." It was not a question, but a statement.

"I don't make a point to remember every person in the neighbourhood."

"Well…Hi, I'm Lily Potter. How do you do?" she said in fake politeness, extending her hand while she did so.

Vernon just stared at her hand. Petunia stared at the mantelpiece. Lily followed her line of sight to a handful of pictures of what looked like a huge, skin colored balloon.

Lily met Petunia's eyes and hastily looked at the tea stain now decorating the kitchen floor. She wondered how thick a rug would have to be cover up _that _stain.

Vernon was still giving her an evil look, so she turned her head and looked at him instead. His moustache looked like it had something living it. It was gray with breadcrumbs and obviously ungroomed.

She shuddered and instead looked above Vernon's head. There was a small window, and she looked out and saw a _normal _neighbourhood. The kids having water fights on their front lawns while their parents yelled at them.

Kids were racing each other on their bikes; the smaller ones were falling off half the time. They grazed their legs but didn't cry.

She wondered what it was like to have a normal life, but she didn't get to wonder for long. The door opened again. A fat…no, obese boy was standing in the doorway.

"Mummy, I'm home!"

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I hope this was a little bit longer. And it's time for (insert drum roll here)…

Reviews Responses:

Yami's Guardian Angel: Yukita: Your dark wants to know? Well it does now!

IamSiriusgrl: I tried to make this chapter a little longer.

Jeran: Yes, I hate pigeons too. So does Lily.

Please review and thanks for reading!

Thoughts and Pondering


	5. A Witch Without Her Wand

A/N Computer decided to eat a quarter of this chapter. So if the ending seems a bit rushed, it's because I had to rewrite it.

A Witch Without Her Wand

"Mummy, I'm home!" Dudley Dursley stood in the front doorway of his house. His huge, bulky frame nearly made it impossible for him to get inside, but he managed to waddle through.

He walked to the kitchen; he always went there when he came home. His mother usually served him some very fattening snacks while cooing about healthy he looked, irony at it's best.

But he knew he wasn't a normal sized boy, because ever since he went to Smeltings, people had teased him about his weight. He had found it particularly difficult to make new friends, preferring to stick with the ones he had made in primary school. _They _didn't tease him, they feared him. And he loved it.

He entered the kitchen, completely oblivious to the chaos that had taken place mere seconds ago in the living room, with a big, stupid grin on his face. But when he looked at the table, his smile turned upside down when he realized his food hadn't been served yet.

He banged his plump fist on the table and yelled, "WHERE IS MY FOOD!" Usually, this caused his mother to come running, apologizing profusely for forgetting and swearing to never forget again. This time, it produced no results. He banged harder, so hard the vase that occupied the middle of the table fell off, smashing into millions of small pieces.

Dudley was curious to where his mother could be. He left the kitchen (without sweeping up the shards of the vase) and proceeded to look around the house.

He checked upstairs, looking in all the bedrooms, apart from the freak's. Why would his mother be spending time with his weird cousin when she could be spending time with him, Dudley, her favourite (and only) son?

Dudley couldn't find her, so he decided to look downstairs. He checked the laundry and knocked on the toilet door, but he couldn't still find her. The only place he hadn't checked was the living room. He wasn't allowed in there. His mum told him it was only for special occasions, since she didn't need 'her Diddy Dinkums to spend time in the boring living room if he has everything he needed in the other rooms of the house.'

He stuck his head cautiously through the doorway of the living room. He saw his mother and father sitting with a wild red-headed woman he didn't recgonize.

Dudley walked into the living room, unaware the mud from the soles of his trainers was leaving large stains on the carpet. He only saw the tea stain that everyone seemed to be staring at, with the remains of the tea set splattered around it.

At least he wasn't the only one who had broken something.

"Mummy, I'm home!" Dudley repeated.

Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Lily looked at this boy with disgust. How could this boy be so…so…happy and fat while her son would probably be locked in some closet suffering from under-nourishment. Because however much she didn't want it to be true, she had to accept it was a very Petunia-like thing to do.

Petunia, who had hated her ever since her Hogwarts letter, Petunia, who had hated her ever since she left her to go to the place that influenced her life the most.

A sudden wave of guilt plagued Lily. It was her fault. If she hadn't been a witch, she wouldn't have gone to Hogwarts, meaning that she would've never died in the first place, which would have resulted in her son not being emotionally abused by her sister.

She didn't give thought to the fact that if she wasn't a witch, she would have never met James and therefore never had Harry.

It was still hard to admit that she had died. She had died, which meant she was meant to be in a coffin six feet underground, her corpse rotting beside her husband's.

So why was she still breathing. The thought seemed odd, since breathing was as natrual as blinking, another thing other dead people didn't do. Consciuslly, she felt her body. She didn't feel dead. She wasn't dead. She was very much alive.

And her son was alive, and he was in this very house. She just needed to find him. But she couldn't get far in a search plan, even if she had one, due to the fact that Petunia, Vernon and her were still involved in a intense staring competetion. Petunia seemed so lost in thoughts that she didn't even acknowloge's Dudley's presence.

Petunia finally lifted her head up, and asked her son, "what is it?" in a rather snappish tone.

"I want my snack!" Dudley demanded.

"Well, you'll just have to wait then, shouldn't you?" she replied.

Dudley looked dumbstruck, and Lily had to stop herself from laughing out loud. This fat lump of Petunia's thought he had to be waited on hand and foot. The only possible good thing about Harry's upbringing was that he couldn't be spoilt.

But it was the only good thing.

Lily looked closer at Dudley and saw that he was staring at her with…fear? She decided to use this to her advantage. Using her craziest look (with a slight helping of sincerity thrown in as well), she screamed "WHERE'S MY HARRY!".

Dudley backed as far away from her as possible without actually leaving the room. Trembling, he answered, "He's in his room." Then he ran from the room as fast as his short pudgy legs would carry him, as far from Lily as possible.

Lily ignored the disapproving looks Petunia was now sending to her son, and the rage that Vernon was building.

Lily flew up the stairs just as Vernon yelled, "NO YOU DON'T!" and ran after her. The stairs were thumping under her feet, threatening to give way due to Vernon's bulk bouncing up and down on them.

She was scared of what she might find upstairs. If Petunia was to be believed, nearly eleven years had passed. That would mean her little Harry would be twelve, nearly a teenager!

The building tornado of emotions in her stomach made her feel like hurling, but there wouldn't be anything to throw up because she hadn't eaten in eleven years.

Thank Merlin she never ate the gray police station mush.

She reached the top of the stairs and raced down the hallway. Lily noticed a door with numerous locks on it. "I'M COMING, HARRY, I'M COMING!" she said, banging her hands on the door. If she had her wand these locks would be opened with an easy _Alohomora_, but she was merely a witch without her wand.

Since she had stopped running, Vernon easily caught up with her. Grabbing her from behind, he easily lifted Lily from the ground.

"Let me down! Let me down!" Lily squealed. Vernon's sausage like arms were wrapped tightly around her stomach, and she couldn't breath. Lily heard footsteps slowly ascending the stairs. She turned her head slightly, which wasn't an easy thing to do in her current position.

Petunia was standing atop the flight of stairs. "Put her down." She said calmly.

"But, Petunia darling…you can't possibly…" Vernon sputtered, while lowering Lily to the floor, where she took a few deep breaths.

Petunia had already taken a bunch of keys out of her pockets and fitted them into the their respective locks. "Go in, Lily." Petunia murmered sadly.

Lily was confused. Her sister's attitude changed like the weather. But she took up the offer and stepped tenetaively into Harry's bedroom.

Harry was sleeping on the bed fully clothed when Lily walked in. All the downstairs commotion hadn't awakened him. She sat on the end of his bed and stroked his hair. Her little Harry had grown up so quickly. It was truly only yesterday to her when her little Harry was one and a half years old, and now…

Tears fell out of her eyes, but she quickly wiped them away and resumed stroking Harry's hair. Her little boy…

Her fingers pushed away Harry's fringe and she couldn't help but gasp when she saw his scar. The noise caused Harry to stir. He sat up and rubbed his eyes and looked to see who had gasped. He rubbed his eyes again as he saw the woman sitting on his bed. Because he couldn't believe his eyes.

"Mum?"

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A little bit shorter than I wanted, but it's alright.

Review Responses:

Kim:See how nice my friends are?

Jak: Yes, I know who you are too! Yes, it is very true that I have no life. Don't you feel sorry for me?

Yami's Guardian Angel: Yukita: tell your dark sugar pops are unhealthy. BECAUSE THEY ARE!

Dweem-Angel: Yup, people seem to favour James over Lily. Poor Lily.

IamSiriusgrl: thankyou!


	6. A Mother's Love

A/N: I think this chapter is a little bit longer than the others. If you think Harry is a little bit too trusting, remember he is only twelve, and doesn't now about the DE's and all that.

_A Mother's Love_

Harry was confused. This red-eyed woman sitting on the end of his bed looked like his mother. He had stared at her image in the Mirror of Erised, and he had a few cherished photos of her. Unless he needed new glasses, this was his mother.

While he had been drifting in and out of sleep, she had been stroking his hair. It had felt like an odd sensation, no one had ever stroked his hair before.

"W-who are you?" Harry stuttered.

"It's me…It's your mum." Lily said, and hugged Harry tight.

When Harry had woken up he thought he was having some horrible hallucination, or someone was pulling a nasty prank on him. But when he felt this woman's embrace there was no doubt left in his mind. This was his mother. He wasn't sure how, and he wasn't sure why, but he felt a bond with her.

A child with his mother. He felt something fall on his shoulder and realised his…mother…was crying.

"Why are you crying?" Harry asked.

"I…I'm just so happy," Lily replied. "I'm so happy to see you again Harry…my little boy…" Lily started to stroke Harry's hair again.

Harry felt awkward. He hadn't felt such love before, coming from a single person. _So this is what having a parent feels like._

And this love…was directed towards him. For ten years of his life he had been called a freak, locked away in the cupboard under the stairs like some monster. Then he learnt about the magical world where he learnt of the man who had killed his parents. And he wanted to kill him. His introduction to the wonderful world of witches and wizards may have made him new friends, but the list of people who would like to see him dead also rose a notch.

But one of his parents wasn't dead anymore. He couldn't fathom how or why, but being raised by his Uncle and Aunt had taught him to be grateful for what he got.

He was grateful…he was so happy…but he was curious as well. In the one year he had spent in the magical world, he had learnt that even witches and wizards couldn't bring back the dead.

He hugged tighter. He never wanted to let go. He was so scared this was a dream, a passing fantasy, and he'd wake up and it all be gone. Before he knew it, he was crying too.

About an hour later they pulled out of the hug.

"How?" Harry asked, looking up at his mother's eyes.

"I don't know, I'm just happy to be here…"

Lily stood up and the mattress rose a few inches. "Come on, Harry. Let's get something to eat." She went downstairs, where Petunia was cooking dinner like nothing had happened. Harry trailed after her in an obedient state of shock. His mother, though to be dead, had come back and was going to buy dinner for him.

Lily walked downstairs and spotted a ten-pound note lying on the table. She pocketed it, without an ounce of guilt for she wasn't a dishonest person and she was sure she would pay back later.

Harry followed to her a local fish and chip shop, originally called 'The Fish and Chip Shop'. There he followed her inside where Lily proceeded to order a fish with a side order of chips. She sat down at one of the tables to wait for her order.

Harry sat across from her. This was becoming more than a dream. This was reality, and his mother was sitting across from him, alive and breathing, waiting to eat dinner.

The waitress called them over and Lily picked up the food. Harry thought it smelt delicious. After all he had eaten over the past few days was a cold can of soup and a hunk of cheese.

Lily also thought it smelt delicious. Mainly because she hadn't eaten in eleven years. It wasn't much, but it was food.

They both dug in eagerly, and the food was finished in mere minutes. They hadn't shared many words, but they didn't need to. But Lily decided it was time to speak.

"So where to now?" Lily asked, rising out of her chair.

"Well…not to sound disrespectful or anything…but I don't want to go back to the Dursleys." Harry replied, surprised that she had asked for his opinion.

"To be honest, there's not many other places we can go." Lily replied.

"Why?" Harry asked curiously.

"Let's take it outside." Lily shooed Harry out into the now darkening street.

"See…the Muggle police may be looking for me…" Lily said, walking down the street in the direction of Privet Drive.

"Looking for you? Why!" Harry asked, shocked.

"It's a long story."

"So why not try looking in the Wizarding World?"

"Because they might be suspicious of me…since dead people…don't…usually come back overnight. I'd also like to say thank-you to you Harry…"

"Thank me? For what?"

Lily lowered her eyes and mumbled, "thank-you for believing me"

"Er…any day…" Harry was beyond surprised. What ever he had suspected he had not expected this.

They were now in the entrance of Privet Drive and Lily and Harry opened the unlocked door and let themselves in. They walked up the stairs and re-entered Harry's room.

"It's not much." He said modestly.

"Nonsense, Harry, it'll be fine."

They stood in the doorway each waiting for the other to move first

"You can go to sleep you know." Lily said. Harry accepted this as an invitation and curled up into a ball on his bed and fell asleep, without even getting changed.

Lily smiled, and removed Harry's glasses and placed them on his bedside table. She planted a kiss on his forehead and brought the bedcovers to cover Harry's body.

She sat on the edge of the bed and watched him sleep peacefully for many hours before dozing off herself.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Lily awoke at daybreak. She yawned loudly, stretching her arms high. She looked out Harry's window and out of the…bars…she saw a normal Muggle suburb in the early hours of a summer morning. A lady was walking a rather large Labrador as a man passed her path on a morning jog and they exchanged nods. The trees rustled and the birds sang. There wasn't a cloud to be seen. But Lily didn't care. Her Harry was back with her where she belonged. They were a family. Almost. Because James wasn't here.

Tears started falling down Lily's face again. But instead of wiping them away, and pretending to be strong, she let them fall.

Lily missed him so much. They were meant to be dead, together. But now she was alive and on her own apart from her son who had aged ten and a half years in a day and her sister who hated her guts.

The old world she had known had changed in a flash of green light. She wasn't in her own world, living in hiding in a world of secrets of lies. She was in this new world, and she didn't know of the state of the magical world. Tears fell harder, leaving wet streaks down the sides of her cheeks. If she had a hankie, she would have blown her nose.

She had to contact someone from the old magical world, soon. She couldn't find one of her old friends, killing someone with a heart attack was not on top of her list of her priorities right now. She couldn't go to Dumbledore, because that pesky old fool was known for sticking his nose where it was unwanted. Like when he told her of the prophecy…she didn't want to think about that…her son…couldn't possibly. She stopped her train of thought and wiped away her tears with the sleeve of her shirt.

Lily ran a list of people she knew in her head, then she decided. This person had just become a Hogwarts professor when she 'died'.

She hoped that he would still be there. Lily shook Harry awake. "Harry, it's time to wake up."

Harry groaned and turned over, dragging the bed sheets after him.

Lily shook him harder and told him, "We're going to meet someone from the magical world."

Harry awoke at these words. "Wha? Who?" he asked sleepily.

" A certain Hogwarts professor," was all that Lily would reveal.

Harry groaned. From the few hours he had spent with his mother, he had learnt that she was very stubborn. He looked out the window. People were just getting up. It was too early. He groaned. But at least he was spending time with his mother, and not slaving away for the Dursleys.

Spending time with his mother. It was like a dream…no…a wish come true. And he was going to stay with his mother for as long as he could. To make up for lost time.

Harry bounded out of bed with a source of newfound energy.

"Wait a minute, young man. You are not going out in the clothes you _slept _in." Lily scolded her son. Not that she could talk, having worn the same clothes she had died in.

"But Mum-" He stopped suddenly. Mum. He was surprised at how natrual the word sounded. Mum. He finally had a person to call his mum.

He still wasn't sure if all this wasn't some wild fantasy his brain had supplied, but he wanted to believe.

"Mum." He repeated. He felt warmth fill his body when he said it.

He had a Mum.

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Anyone wanna guess this time round? It's pretty easy…

Review Responses:

Miss Piratess: Thank-you for the reviews! You were expecting James? That would be returning to cliché! Though it's usually the other way round. By the way, James will NOT be coming back in this fic.

IamSiriusgrl: hope this is soon enough.

Fiction.nottttttttt: well…try reading the other chapters. I have to say this is a nice change from "u suk."

Dweemangel: yup…it's one of my plots to take over the world…or not…


	7. Snape's Maiden

A/N: Harry talks very little in this chapter. He is still intimidated by Professor Snape. Poor thing. Lily talks a lot in this chapter. I think I've forgotten to mention this before, but the part of the story that takes place before school is Lily centric, with Harry's thoughts thrown in at points.

_Snape's Maiden_

On a warm summer's day Lily found herself standing in front of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry wearing a jumper, holding onto her son's hand that was also dressed in attire inappropriate to the season.

Lily had to borrow Petunia's clothes since she didn't have any of her own. But since all of Petunia's summer clothes were 'in the wash', she had to wear one of her jumpers over her underclothes and it was made out the same itchy material the bedcovers at the police station were.

Lily frowned. She was on the run from the Muggle law. Granted, it wasn't anything bigger than trespassing but it still worried her.

She raised her hand and knocked on the large wooden door three times. She was praying that he still taught here and that he would answer the door. The door opened a crack, and luckily it was Severus Snape on the other side.

"Sorry, the castle is currently closed due to summer break." Snape said snarkily.

"Don't you remember me, Severus?" Lily screwed her face up in mock sadness.

"If that is you again, Gilderoy, I have absolutely _no _desire to purchase any of your 'books'."

"I guess that Gilderoy Lockhart _does _sound like a woman, but I assure you that I am not him."

"Then who are you?" Snape replied irritably as he threw the door open. His eyes looked shocked as he took in the sight of the woman standing in front of him. But it was only lingered for a moment.

"Well, well, well…Lily Potter…I'd never thought I'd live to see the day." Snape sneered.

"SNAPE!" Harry yelled, shocked. "Why do you want to meet with _him?_" Everything in hearing range turned to look at Harry, three owls and a pigeon. One of the owls looked disgusted and flew off.

"I'm sure she has her reasons, too complex for your miniscule brain to understand."

"Don't talk to him like that!" Lily growled angrily.

"Oh…a mother lion with her cub. How…cute. Why don't you come into my office and discuss this…matter in my office rather than having a shouting match through the doorway like uncivilized children."

"If you're only including yourself as the uncivilized child…sure." Lily mumbled under her breath.

Snape's eyes narrowed. "I do not have to help you, Evans, but I am doing this purely out of the kindness of my heart."

Lily could vaguely hear Harry say "What heart?"

"Fine. And by the way, it's Potter." Lily replied coldly, but she felt her stomach summersault as she said the name.

Snape's eyes narrowed further at the mention of the surname of his school enemy. Lily noticed this and rolled her eyes.

"People would think you were still sixteen keeping up petty school-boy grudges."

Snape ignored this last comment and changed the subject. "I believe I made an offer to go inside?"

Harry coughed, which Lily took as an indication to take up on Snape's offer.

Lily walked into her former school, Harry following closely behind. She looked around. Hogwarts was just as magnificent and beautiful as she remembered. Harry smiled. Hogwarts was well and truly his home.

"Hogwarts." He whispered.

"It's just like I remember!" Lily blurted out.

It was Snape's turn to roll his eyes. "You mean it's so dull it hasn't changed."

"As a matter of fact, that's not what I mean at all."

Harry let out his cough again. Snape lead the two into the dungeons, and into his office. He sat down in his chair, as Lily and Harry sat down in the seats across him. Snape was glaring at her in a way he might glare at a misbehaving student. Harry wriggled slightly in his seat. He did not like Snape's office all. It _was _a little heavy on the green, silver and serpents.

"Well, _Potter_, I'm assuming you came here for a reason, other than to have a debate loud enough for all of Scotland to here." Snape smirked, showing his yellowing teeth.

"I am currently in need of your services. In layman's terms, I need your help." Lily replied.

Harry snorted.

"_That _is obvious. The only information I require now, is how to help you. "

"I would have thought this is 'obvious'. I need a disguise to get into Diagon Alley so I can purchase a wand. I also need to gain entrance to the Ministry of Magic to arrange a meeting to alter my records and regain custody of my son."

Harry smiled when he heard this. After years of being called 'freak' and 'boy', it was nice…no; it was amazing, that someone was finally calling him son. Warmth filled his heart and he felt happy, content. Happy was not a common emotion for him, and prior to this moment, he wouldn't have been able to accurately describe the emotions. But now he could.

Lily looked at Harry and hugged him. Harry instantly felt safer. The moment was short lived however, since Snape started talking again.

Snape raised an eyebrow. "The first is simple with a few glamour spells, but the latter I can not do. You're better off asking Dumbledore."

"Oh…yes…and one more thing. Do _not, _under any circumstances inform Albus Dumbledore that you saw me." Lily said. She did not need Dumbledore's interference at this stage. Closer to the start of the year, she would need to meet with him. But not now.

"Is that all?"

Lily nodded while Harry coughed. They stood up in perfect synchrony and headed out the door. Snape followed them out, headed for his potion lab. They didn't get very far, since they managed to walk straight into someone. The nearby portraits sniggered, and one yelled out "Watch where you're going, you greasy haired fool!"

A certain someone who was the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the exact same person who Lily didn't want to meet.

"Hello Severus, and who is this lovely maiden?" he asked, his clear blue eyes twinkling their ever-annoying twinkle. Lily let out a breath she hadn't know she was holding. He didn't recognize her. She hoped the senility had finally gone to his head. But Harry ruined her chance.

"Professor Dumbledore!" Harry yelled. He had previously gone unnoticed due to his height or lack thereof. The only people Dumbledore had seen were Snape and his 'maiden'. But as senile as Dumbledore was, he could not hear Harry's outburst.

"Mr. Potter!" Dumbledore said in astonishment. "What on earth are you doing here?"

Lily giggled. When she was younger, she had thought that nothing could faze the great Albus Dumbledore. She was just about to be proved wrong. Maybe Harry would keep his head and not tell Dumbledore about Lily. But that wasn't to be.

"It's Mum!" Harry yelled excitedly.

"Yourmother's dead Harry. The dead…do not come back to life…death is after all, the next great adventure." Dumbledore told Harry, looking over his half-moon glasses. Harry thought this felt very familiar.

"That's where you're wrong." Lily declared. "Remember me, professor?"

Dumbledore turned to Severus. "Am I supposed to know this lovely maiden of yours?" he questioned.

Lily blushed. She had the most annoying habit of blushing at the most inopportune moments. She regained her self and growled, "I. Am. Not. His. Girl. Friend."

Dumbledore looked appalled; "I never implied that, did I? Then…who are you? I am getting quite forgetful in my old age." He replied, his eyes ever twinkling.

Lily batted her eyelids. "Why I'm Lily Potter of course!"

Yes, this _was _going to be fun!

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Coming up: A sad chapter! And that's all I can say without giving too much away!

Review Responses:

vampire: Nope.

IamSiriusgrl: There's very little where Lily comes back on her own. Poor Lily…

Tears-Of-Love-Tears-Of-Hate: Well…they DID meet with Dumbledore, but it wasn't whom Lily wanted too!

Jeran: Correct! It was pretty obvious, since I did say in the last chapter that the person started teaching roughly about the times of Lily's death. And those two were Snape and Trelawney, and I would've laughed if someone had actually said Trewlawney!

Yami's Guardian Angel: You are also right! And your dark is on its sugar high from the sugar pop.

dweem-angel: Yup. Our favourite (and only) potions master!

Miss Piratess: I am pretty good at what would be going on in a twelve-year-old's mind, since I was twelve last year…That note was mainly to remind people how old Harry is.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed!

'Til next time,

Thoughts and Pondering.


	8. Prophecy

A/N: This is my favourite chapter yet! I will put my review responses in the next chapter, since I don't have the time to do them right now, as I have to go to bed…

Prophecy

"…Lily…Potter!" Dumbledore look stunned. Lily tried to take an empathetic walk in his shoes to know how he felt, but it was utterly useless. Nothing could faze the great Albus Dumbledore, but she seemed to have found something. She knew she should be sorry for being so blunt, as Dumbledore obviously didn't expect one his past students to suddenly come back to life overnight.

But the evidence was standing in front of him, and she was sure she was solid because she had collided with Dumbledore only minutes before.

"Well…welcome back!" Dumbledore through his arms open and Lily let herself be hugged. She found it very awkward, because she wasn't on the best of terms with him. "Why don't we take this wonderful conversation up to my office?"

His office, Lily thought. A place where he felt in power. Lily knew as soon as she stepped in that office she would feel like a Hogwarts student again, summoned to the Headmaster's office because she turned Snape's hair blue, or something similar. She followed Dumbledore's footsteps. She could also hear his voice introducing the various portraits adorning Hogwarts walls to Harry, who was looking happier than Lily had seen him recently. But it was only twenty-four hours.

Dumbledore didn't wait for an answer, but led the way to his office. Lily walked the familiar steps in silence, Harry by her side. She didn't want to push her own opinions of Dumbledore onto Harry but it was hard. She took a few deep breaths. Dumbledore didn't invent the prophecy; he was just the messenger. The person who said the prophecy was Sybill Trelawney. And according to Dumbledore it was a 'real' prediction.

To her it was only a month ago when Dumbledore told her the news. In reality it was years. It still didn't make it any easier. When Dumbledore first told her, she had thought he was joking. Or Trelawney had recited the prophecy from a book labelled "How to Create Realistic Prophecies: For Dummies" But it sank into her that he wasn't joking.

After all, his eyes hadn't been twinkling. And when Albus Dumbledore's eyes were twinkling, something was wrong.

The rest of the day was a haze of disbelief. And the days after the days were spent in hiding, a month of pure boredom. But why were they waiting for Voldemort's defeat to be able to come out again, if only Harry could defeat him?

In the end they were just waiting for him to come. In the end they were just waiting to die.

She had, hadn't she? Except that she was back and Voldemort was dead. Not really dead, but in some sort of freakish limbo.

Maybe that's what happened to her, they didn't know what to do with her, so they just sent her back. But this wasn't some muggle sci-fi movie. There wasn't some helpful scene telling her what had happened and why. She felt like the answer was like a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces were all there she just needed to put them all together.

Her feet lead her to the stone gargoyle. A wave of fear swept over her. She didn't understand it until she remembered that the last time she had been in Dumbledore's office _wasn't _the time she turned Snape's hair blue. Dumbledore had summoned her to his office to tell her of the prophecy.

"Lemon Drops." Dumbledore told the gargoyle. The gargoyle jumped aside, revealing a staircase hidden behind it.

"After you." Dumbledore gestured.

Lily was reluctant to go first, so Snape swaggered up first. Lily followed him up. She sat in a chair when something burst into flame. Harry let out a yell of surprise. He had never seen something spontaneously combust before. He fell into his seat. Lily sat down slowly. She had only ever seen Fawkes' rebirth once before…and the first time…well it had seriously frightened her.

"Well, Lily, what did you want to discuss?" Dumbledore asked, while offering around a packet of lemon drops. Lily politely declined, though both Snape and Harry took one.

"Um…Professor…" Harry interrupted, "Your bird just…exploded…"

"Don't worry to much about it Harry, Fawkes will be fine after a few days. Look, you can see him being reborn from the ashes." Harry looked, mystified. He didn't get much of a chance however.

"Tell Harry the prophecy. He has the right to know." Lily demanded.

"I'm not quite sure that is wise, maybe you should wait until he is older."

Lily was just about to reply, but Harry beat her to it.

"What are you keeping from me? Prophecy? There's no such thing…is there?"

Lily was shocked at Harry's discourteous attitude towers the headmaster, but felt oddly proud of him at the same time.

"Twelve years ago, I was interviewing candidates for the divination position." Dumbledore started, Lily felt sure she had heard those same words before, merely a month ago. Harry looked confused, so Lily told him that divination was an elective in third year. Harry nodded in understanding.

" I was just about to give up when I received one final application. A descendant of a celebrated Seer. I agreed to meet her at the Hog's Head, a…less then desirable bar in Hogsmeade. After only a few minutes of interviewing her, I felt for sure she was not right for the job. But just then she fell in a trance. And she said…

" The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seven month dies…and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives… The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…"

There was an uncomfortable silence.

Snape spoke first. "You surely must be jesting…right? Potter can not be the one to vanquish the Dark Lord! That would be…"

"Ironic?" Lily supplied.

Snape fell silent.

Harry spoke up next "…I don't understand…I can't vanquish Voldemort! I mean…I'm just Harry…just famous for something that I can't even remember! I'm so stupid…

"Harry Potter, you are a brilliant and intelligent young man and you can do whatever you want to do! You don't need some 'prophecy' ruling over your life! Dumbledore, I remember when I was twelve, just as young and impressionable as Harry is. You told me that it's not our abilities that make us who we are. You said it was our choices! Where's the choice in this? Kill or be killed! I'm sorry to say, but that is not a choice! What hope does a twelve-year-old boy have against that sadistic old bastard? HE KILLED Dumbledore. HE KILLED ME! I'm not a person who usually runs around in circles looking for revenge, but by God he will pay! He might not be here today, he might not be here tomorrow, but some day he will come back! We've already proved that dead people can come back overnight. Why not Voldemort? I don't know why I'm here Dumbledore, but I feel like it's my mission to get rid of him." Lily hugged Harry fiercely, tears originating from many different emotions falling on her face.

"That prophecy can go to hell for all I care, BECAUSE I AM HARRY'S MOTHER! It's like your sitting at your desk creating a chess set. You already have the table, but you have to carve and shape the pieces. But when you have the pieces you can play the game. You don't care what you have to sacrifice as long as the king comes up on top. And you're the king. Well all I can say is go get some children of your own, so you can ruin their lives for them."

"Because Fate, if there is such a thing, has given me a second chance and I am not screwing up this time! I'm going to be the best mother I can possibly be, and you can not interfere! You are merely the headmaster of my son's school, so things regarding his academical studies or school misbehaviors would be of your concern. But anything he does outside of school time is none of your buisness! Harry is my son, and I, with James…James…" Lily stopped her rant and just sat silent. "James…You look so much like him, you know." Lily mumbled, her hands on Harry's shoulders.

"It's alright Mum…" Harry whispered quitely, as he gave his mother a hug.

"I-I…just…miss him so much…Your father should be here instead of me. I'm a horrible mother." Lily sobbed, tears rolling down her cheeks. They landed on Harry's hair, flattening his hair down slightly.

"But you're the only mother I'll ever have. Please don't leave me." Harry said it almost silently, but Lily still heard him.

"I'll never leave you again."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

Harry felt warmth fill his heat, a feeling he hadn't felt in a long time. But it wasn't so long that he had forgotten what it was called.

It was called love.

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This didn't exactly turn out the way imagined. As usual, my hands took over when my brain stopped working. Thanks for reading and PLEASE review. I did say please! And look…there's nothing resembling a cliffie in this chapter!


	9. Mirrors Tell Lies

A/N: We find out why Lily thinks she's back…tell me if you like the idea!

Mirrors Tell Lies

Italics is Dream/Flashback.

"Well that clears that unhappy buisness up!" Dumbledore exclaimed, the twinkle back in his eyes. He turned to look at Lily. "You and Harry can stay at Hogwarts for the remainder of the school holidays, it's alright with me. He turned his head even further until he was facing Snape. "Is it alright with you, Severus?"

Snape looked like he wanted to shake his head, but was smart enough not to refuse. So he grudgingly nodded his head.

"Well that's that!' Dumbledore said, clapping his hands. "Please excuse me, the house elves are making a new culinary delight that I must taste. He stood up from his chair and left, leaving Snape, Lily and Harry behind.

"He's gone soft in the head." Lily muttered.

"I prefer to use different wording, _Potter. " _Snape spat as he took his leave.

"Mum, can I stay here for a little while?" Harry asked.

"Sure, as long as you don't break, or completely destroy anything." Lily joked.

"I won't! I promise!" Harry said, frightened.

"Lighten up, Harry, I was joking!"

"…Joking?" Harry replied.

Lily nodded. "Come and give me a hug." Lily held Harry tight to her chest, the way she used to do when he was a baby. After a few silent minutes she whispered, "I love you." As she let go of Harry.

"I love you too." Harry smiled.

"I'll meet you in the Great Hall at dinner time." Lily said as she walked out the door.

This gave Harry the perfect opportunity to look around Dumbledore's office. There were various instruments covered in thick layers of dust that looked like they hadn't been touched in centuries. He lost interest in these and looked at Dumbledore's desk more closely.

Apart from the staggering amount of parchment on the desk there was a bag of sherbet lemons, a weird mini statue of a hippogriff and a photo frame of what could have only been his family. Dumbledore, considerably younger was standing next to two teenage girls, one who looked seventeen and the other who looked fourteen. Both had the unmistakable Dumbledore twinkle in their eyes. He looked at it for a few moments when something else caught his eyes.

A black sheet was covering something up in the corner of the room. But before he pulled it off, he had a feeling he knew what it was.

The Mirror of Erised.

It was exactly the way he remebered it. The elaborate golden carvings were still there. He didn't want to look in; he was scared of what he might see. He tried to keep his eyes from looking at the glass. But when he looked in, all that he saw was himself. Harry was confused. This had to be the mirror of Erised. Unless it was some cheap duplication, but Harry realized that Dumbledore would not keep such a thing in his office.

He racked his brain for any information that might be useful. Something Hermione had said, maybe? He thought back to the night where Dumbledore had discovered him staring into the mirror, looking at the image of his parents. He now had two thirds of that image. Two thirds of a family.

He gasped aloud when he remembered something else Dumbledore had told him. "The world's happiest man may look in the mirror as see himself exactly as he is." He observed his reflection again, to see if Dumbledore had indeed been telling the truth. He didn't get the chance to find out, because he noticed a difference he hadn't seen before.

He had no scar.

Harry fingered the glass where his scar should be, his fingers tracing a jagged line in the thin layer of dust the mirror had accumulated. In this reflection, he was just Harry…a normal twelve-year-old boy. Not famous for something he didn't remember, but just like the rest of the world, trying to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives. He, Harry, would never have to make that choice since it was already chosen for him. He patted down his fringe to make the difference look less noticable. Now his reflection looked just like himself, the way a real mirror should be.

"Mirrors tell lies."

Harry whipped around to see who had uttered this profound piece of knowledge. His mother was standing behind him; a hand rested on his shoulder. Harry recognized this image. The one that he had seen last Christmas.

"When I was at school, this mirror used to be in an abandoned classroom. But when I looked in, I didn't see pictures of my parents, I didn't see images of my goals being achieved. I saw myself, and it scared me. The other few people that knew about it told me that they saw things, like having a prefect badge, or being the Minister of Magic. But when I was in seventh year that changed.

When I got back from the summer holidays, I visited it again. In it I saw you, Harry, I saw you. And that's how I knew to give your father a chance…

"Give him a chance?" Harry asked.

"Your father and I used to hate each other. I used to think he was nothing but a bullying, arrogant prat. Then I saw you in the mirror…and you looked so much like your father…then I knew. When you were born, I was interested in why the baby in the mirror looked so much like you.

I did my research…and what I found was shocking. The meaning of the mirror of Erised has been mistranslated through time. A long time ago, the Mirror was plain, without it's writing. The mirror shows half-truths about the future. The glass distorts the true image, so that explains the differences."

"But Dumbledore told me that it wasn't healthy to dwell on my _desires _Did you tell him about what you found out"

"No…and the second part of my research made me decide not to. The mirror doesn't simply show glimpses of the future, it creates the future. It is creation. There are only two things in life that are a hundred percent guaranteed, Creation and Destruction, or more simply, birth and death. Do you understand?"

Harry nodded slowly. "But what motivated you to find out more about the mirror. I'm pretty sure it wasn't just for your own knowledge."

Lily smiled. "No, it wasn't. I was a Unspeakable."

"A Unspeakable?" Harry asked.

"A Unspeakable is a person who studies life's greatest mysteries. And life's greatest mystery is time. Time however is not a matter to be discussed on an empty stomach. Let's go down to the Great Hall, maybe someone saved some leftovers for you!"

Harry walked to his bedroom, exhausted. His mother had been wrong. There had been a lot of food there and he was sure that none of it was leftovers. He and his mother had two rooms, joined together by a door. He went to his side, and fell asleep.

Lily turned over in her sleep, her bedcovers falling off in the process. She felt cold…she was shivering…she was dreaming.

_She was in a bedroom, holding Harry in her arms. She was waiting…waiting for two words. Accompanied by a flash of green light. For she had already seen them once. And she had already given up. She was going to die and she knew it. _

_She had never been so scared before in her life. She wanted to run, she wanted to jump out the window and run as fast as she could. But her legs were stuck, just like those dreams where there was someone was chasing her and she couldn't get away._

_But this was so much more than a dream…_

_She could feel her tears trickling down her cheeks, leaving streaks of water. She clutched Harry to her chest. She never wanted to let go…she was so afraid…she put Harry in his crib, rocking him slightly. All that she ever wanted was him to be happy. Was that too much to ask? _

"_Goodnight Harry…" she whispered as the door was blasted in. _

_It was a blur from there…she only remembered the fear…_

_Then she remembered the light. The green light rushing towards her. She remembered screaming when it hit her…screaming so loudly it was impossible to hear…she was falling in a bottomless pit…she was never going to reach the bottom…she was falling…_

Thump. Lily landed on the floor on top of her bedsheets. She heard herself screaming but she couldn't stop. Harry rushed in to the room, looking scared.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked.

"Harry!" Lily yelled. "You're alright!" She ran over to him and hugged him. "I'm never letting go…not again…"

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I probably won't be updating till the 9th of April since the school holidays are coming up and I have to spend that time away from my computer.

Miss Piratess: Glad you liked it ;)

Nightwing 509: Until all my reviewers told me, I never knew there were so few Lily-comes-back stories! Then I looked and I found like 2. Glad you liked it.

Bandgsecurityaw: Thanks for reviewing!

Fiction.nottttt: 'rolls eyes'

Yami: Your mutiple personality disorder strikes again! Lol…glad to see you could review…maybe doing school work is a good idea too!

IamSiriusgrl: nope, I'm not blonde…I'm a brunette.


	10. Dreams

A/N: I know it's been two weeks, and this is also a short chapter. All I can say is I'm sorry. Next chapter will be up as soon as I can…which will be very soon because I'm on school holidays now.

Dreams 

It had been three weeks since Lily had arrived at Hogwarts. Harry took every day as another chance to go flying on his Nimbus (Lily had retrieved Harry's belongings two weeks ago) Lily preferred to get a chair out and read a book on the lakeside, and for the first time in her life she swore she was getting a tan.

Lily knew she couldn't stay at Hogwarts for ever though because if she didn't go to the Ministry and clear things up…well let's say the students would be a little scared of having someone who was meant to be dead on school grounds. She had talked to Dumbledore yesterday and he said he was going to find an escort for her incase 'things didn't go to plan'.

She wondered whom Dumbledore would trust to be her escort. Not that she really cared, as long as it wasn't Snape…

Lily lay back in her chair, the warm sunray's beat down on her face, making her drowsy. A little nap wouldn't hurt…

Dream---

_The grass beneath her feet was to green for summer but the sky was cloud free. Lily was dangling her legs into a lake that felt pleasantly cool to her toes. She looked into the lake and she saw her reflection…though it wasn't hers._

_A stag looked back at her. Lily did a double take. She was a person…yet her reflection was a stag. Something very strange was going on. Reflections only changed when the person did. Lily felt her body. She didn't feel like a stag. She was missing a main requirement anyway. _

"_Don't be sad, Lily." _

_She spun around, looking for the speaker._

"_It's me, James." _

Lily's heart started thumping loudly. "Where are you?" She asked quietly.

"_Look in the water." _

Confused, Lily took another look at the water. All she saw was the stag…the stag! "James is that you?"

"_I honestly cannot answer that question…I was once a human known as James…but who I am know I do not know."_

_Lily's hopes lifted" It's you James, it's really you…why are you here?" Unknown to her, tears had started flowing. But if they were happy or sad she didn't know. _

"I have come to tell you to not be sad…some people are meant to die, while some are meant to live on…promise me Lily…promise me that no matter what happens you won't give up. Do it for Harry. Don't dwell on what could have been but concentrate on the future…for it is unknown."

"_Good-bye, Lily." _

"Don't leave me! Please! I LOVE YOU JAMES!" The grass was slippery and Lily lost her footing and tumbled into the lake. As she fell in she had another glance at her reflection. It was normal. The stag had gone.

"_MUM!" A voice screamed, as Lily woke up with a splash._

_---End Dream---_

Lily stood up, wondering why her clothes were drenched. When she opened her eyes she found out why. She had rolled off her chair and fallen into the lake. Luckily she had only fallen into the shallow part. If she had gone any further, the lake bottom would have taken a sudden dip and become much deeper.

Harry was kneeling on the edge of the lake, obviously trying to tell her something. He asked, "Do you need a hand out?"

"No, I'll be fine…" Lily stepped out, onto the dry green grass. "I just dozed off…"

"And fell into the lake…" Harry replied doubtfully. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Lily stretched her arms. "Actually, I feel really tired. I'll think I'll go to my bedroom so if I roll off my bed I won't make an unexpected entrance into a body of water.

"Yeah, I think I'll go inside too…maybe do some of my summer homework." Harry pulled a face. "Or maybe I'll write a letter to Ron and Hermione.

Lily went into her room and opened the window, which let in a cool breeze. She changed out of her wet clothes and fell asleep on top of her bed covers. Hopefully she wouldn't have another dream…

_---Dream---_

"_James!" Lily yelled excitedly. He was sitting at the base of a large oak tree, reading a thick book. Lily couldn't see the title from where she was standing. _

_James lowered the book, looked Lily straight in the eyes and said, "Stay away from me." _

"Huh?"

"_You don't impress me with your ignorance."_

"_What do you mean by that?"_

"_You think you can just stroll up to me and pretend nothing happened…I died for you, and this is how you repay me!" _

"What did I do?" Lily was confused and frustrated. This James was different from the stag in her previous dream.

"_You chose to go back to live." _

"What do you mean by that? One moment I have this green light shooting towards me and the next moment I'm at Godric's Hollow. I don't see some 'choice' in there, do you?"

"_Forget it, Lily. Clearly your return to the mortal plain has addled your brain if you can't remember…just go away. You're the one who abandoned me in the first place, so I don't think it wold be too hard for you…maybe I'll see you again…when you come back here where you belong..."He through the book at Lily, who ducked at the right moment. _

"_What do you want me to do? Just die?" Lily asked angrily, infuriated by James's attitude._

"_I could use the company." _

"_But what about Harry?"_

"_He doesn't need you…look Lily, fate is obviously trying to mess with our minds. You're supposed to be dead, just like me. But you had to take up on that offer and go back. It's not fair. How would you like it if _I_ just left you here but I could go back to life…live again. I'm not going to pretend I'm not jealous, because I am…"_

"_ENOUGH, ALREADY, ENOUGH!" Lily felt like she was about to cry. No matter how it seemed she like confrontations she felt like she was going to cry._

"_Well…bye." James disappeared, as if someone had grabbed an eraser and rubbed him out._

_  
"James?" Lily asked. There was no reply. She started crying. She sat where James did moments before and rocked back and forth. _

"_I want to wake up."  
_

_---End Dream---_

Lily awoke with a start. Sitting bolt up right on her bed, she felt cold. She walked over to the open window and closed it, but it didn't help much. All that she could think about were her dreams. Which one was true? Or in some sort of crazy way were they both true.

Or were they just figments of her imagination. Lily yawned.

She'd probably never find out.

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Please Review! Review Responses will be next chapter.


	11. Trip

_A/N: You don't want to know what happened…let's just say I have to run scandisk every single day now :) Anyway, I'm sorry this chapter is late. _

Trip 

Lily checked the clock on her bedside table and noticed that it was five thirty. She realized she probably wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, but wasn't quite ready to go out of her room. She felt very cold all of a sudden. She looked down and realised that her blanket had rolled of her during the course of the night. So she lifted her blanket and dragged it to the couch, and cuddled up, grabbing the nearest book. It happened to be a worn copy of _Hogwarts, A History. _Flipping to a random page she read an excerpt about Rowena Ravenclaw.

_In her years at Hogwarts, Rowena Ravenclaw taught many subjects, her favoured being potions. Many people at the time did not think that potions require the same concentration and dedication as spell casting, but Rowena thought it was quite the oppisite. If you think about it, if you pronounce a spell wrong, it can only inflict damage on the subject of the spell. But if you botch a potion, the potion may explode and seriously injure or kill anyone in the immediate vicinity. A potion as harmless as a simple Pepper-Up may become deadly if the wrong substance is added. _

_Potion making is now a refined art, now days there is a potion for nearly everything. But a thousand years ago, potions were a new art, and not one that many preferred to indulge in. Before the introduction of potion making, cauldrons were used for cooking food, mainly soup or broth_

_Rowena later proved the fact behind her opinion, after dying in a potion experiment. It is safe to say from her extensive research in potions (or at least the research that has survived to the current day), that you should never mix potions or risk inflicting serious harm on yourself and others. _

_There has been an abundant amount of speculation on what potions she was mixing, and what she hoped to achieve. Some people think that it was an advanced healing potion that could bring people _

_back from the brink of death. Some think it was a cure for lycanthropy. But the truth is unknown. _

Lily stopped there, as it was the end of the page. She didn't feel like reading the rest of what was known of Rowena Ravenclaw's life story. She had already read the book before, in seventh year for an extra credit History of Magic assignment. Dumbledore had told her that she would be able to go to the Ministry today or tomorrow, and she hoped it was today.

All of a sudden, there was a knocking at the door. She took another glance at her clock. Six o'clock. She could not believe it had taken her half an hour to read half a page.

"Wait a second!" She called out, getting changed as quickly as she could. After pulling on her socks and shoes, she opened the door.

"I was indeed wondering when you were going to grace me with your presence." A grouchy Severus Snape said from the doorway.

Lily flushed. "I did tell you to wait."

"You told me to wait 'a second'. I waited for fifty-nine more."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Are you sure you got enough sleep last night? Oh…wait, I forgot, you're always like that!"

"Let's stop bantering like school-children."

"OK, let's start over. What the hell are you doing here at six in the morning?"

" To escort you to the ministry."

"But I do seem to recall you saying that you couldn't do that? And I also recall that you told me you would take me to Diagon Alley."

Snape inhaled deeply. "Dumbledore thinks that it would be easier if you went to the Ministry first."

"With you."

"I assure you that I have many more things I would much rather be doing…oh, yes, there is something else. Dumbledore wants you to bring Harry there."

"Why?" Lily asked in astonishment.

"Lily, you must know by now that Albus rarely gives any reasoning behind his requests." Snape leant against the doorframe.

"OK…I'll go get him." She pushed roughly past Snape who was still standing in the doorway, heading to Harry's room which was next door.

Harry was already awake, but it was obvious it hadn't been very long. For one thing his hair was messier than ever. And he was still wearing the oversized pajamas that had previously belonged to Dudley. Internally, Lily growled. She had to take Harry shopping soon.

"'Morning." Harry smiled sleepily, grabbing a comb in a futile attempt to brush his hair.

"We're going." Lily said shortly, grabbing Harry's arm.

"What? Where?" Harry replied groggily, "I haven't brushed my hair!" He sat on the end of his bed, running the comb through his hair.

"There's no point. It's a lost cause." "You look just like your father, you know." She smiled sadly, ruffling Harry's hair.

"Hey, Mum, you just made it messy again!"

They went back to Lily's room where Snape was still standing in the doorway. "Ready to go? But Potter, you haven't even brushed your hair!" Snape said sarcastically

Harry growled as Lily rolled her eyes.

"I presume you do know how to Apparate? We may need to stand closer together since we will need to bring Potter with us."

"Do you mean me or Harry?"

"I will not even answer that question." Snape said. They huddled together in the doorway, Lily was unsure of which person had the most disgusted look on their face. Harry certainly didn't seem fond of the idea of being close to Snape.

"Our desired destination is the lobby of the Ministry of Magic." Lily closed her eyes and focused. When she opened them she was somewhere else. And it sure as hell wasn't the Ministry of Magic.

She was standing right in the middle of Diagon Alley. She was standing right in the middle of Diagon Alley in the early morning of a day that she was supposed to be dead. Without Snape or Harry. Oh. Crap. People were staring at her, many people preferred not to Apparate straight into Diagon Alley because it stood the risk of landing on someone. She decided to go to the Leaky Cauldron. She could try and find something to cover her face with on her way.

Lily didn't run, because it would look too suspicious. So she walked at a brisk pace, trying to get there before she attracted too much attention to herself. She was so worried that someone might see her that she walked into someone, knocking herself to the ground.

"Do you need a hand up?" The person asked.

Lily took his hand and propelled herself to her feet. She knew something was wrong. For as soon as she stood up, she saw herself looking into the eyes of Remus Lupin.

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DUM, dum, DUM!

Thank-you to all who reviewed! You are the best! The chapter after next WILL see the start of the school term…all I have to do now is find my copy of CoS.


	12. Reunion

A/N…Ten reviews for the last chapter. I was shocked to say the least. Well thanks to all that reviewed and all that are reading my story. I honestly didn't think that many people would be interested in it.

Reunion.

"Um…thanks, but I really have to be going…" She started, but she didn't move to go anywhere. People were staring even more than they had when she had Apparated into the alley. Let them stare, she thought. All it meant that they had nothing better to do then watch people who were doing things that were slightly more interesting. They might as well go to a zoo. The animals may have the same intelligence level as them. Remus stared at her like he had seen a ghost. After a few seconds he shook his head. "Sorry, you just looked like an old friend of mine."

"Um…yeah…I'll get going. She made of to walk in the direction of the Leaky Cauldron. She didn't get far before Remus stopped her.

"Wait…what's that on your shoulder?" Remus asked.

Lily was wearing a blue singlet that day, since it was very warm. This, of course, revealed her shoulders. Which means that Remus could clearly see the scar she had gotten in first year, a weird squiggly line that she had received when she had fallen off her broom in flying class and directly on a tree. She had never liked flying again, even if wasn't on a broom. Like the time when she was fifteen and on summer break, her family had gone to Italy for two weeks. She had spent the plane trick panicking, scared that the plane would suddenly lurch her out the door or something.

"Oh, when I was five my cat scratched me."

"Oh. Can I see?"

"NO!" Lily shouted, then she realised she shouldn't have done that.

"I'm sorry if I was too forward."

"No, it's alright," Lily said, glancing at her wrist, "I really have to get going."

She pushed pass, but she tripped on a loose stone in the foot falling flat on her face.

"Are you alright?" Remus asked concernedly, reaching out his hand to help her up.

"Uh…" Lily groaned, feeling her nose. It was still there, in relatively the same shape she left in. She poked it. It hurt. It wasn't broken, but it might get swollen.

"That scar…" Remus's face changed to disbelief, then to shock. "Could it possibly be coincidental?"

Lily tried to feign ignorance. "Huh?"

"Who do you think you are? How _dare _you! Lily is dead!"

"I'M-" Lily started indignantly, but was cut off by some loud _pops _at the end of the alley. A dazed looking Harry and a livid looking Snape were standing, the people stared at them instead, the same confused stares they had used on Lily before.

"Well it looks like we've found her…" Snape said, at the same time Harry tried to run to his mum. But one of the people, upon seeing the famous Boy-who-lived yelled "THAT'S HARRY POTTER!" Everyone who heard the shout ran to Harry. Harry's route to Lily was blocked. There was nothing better to do than watch Snape was try to usher Harry away from the crowd that was gathering.

Before Lily could talk, or even a emit a groan that would sound like "Oh, crap….", Remus had put two and two together, but was in the process of trying to figure out if it did indeed equal four.

"Mum?" Remus squinted at Harry. "That's Harry Potter…no…Remus tried to back away, only to find he was in front of a wall. "No it's not…no…who _are _you? "

Lily tried to think of the best way to go about this. She decided to tell the truth, and there was no point in beating around the bush.

"It's me…Remus, it's me, Lily."

"No…that's impossible! Voldemort killed her! And you're standing there telling me that you're her. I can't believe people these days." His voice was shaking, "Two of my best friends died one night and soon after that my world just came falling down around my shoulders. I WAS ALONE!" Remus screamed, and the crowd, who were now sick of shaking Harry's hand, turned to stare at Remus.

"I'm not joking. I'm Lily. You saw the scar. And I remember on the day I got it, you told me it was the weirdest scar you'd ever seen. You offered to teach me how to fly, but I refused, saying the day I flew on again is when pigs flew and I would get on it's back and ride it. And it did happen, remember Seventh Year Charms? Professor Flitwick looked so…shocked. He had no idea why I would've ridden a pig. I don't think he ever got over it. I think he finally decided that he had the magic of some of the student's stray charms had addled his brain."

"Could be Polyjuice Potion." Remus stated, looking like he was praying for it to be true.

"In third year, you told me that polyjuice potion couldn't be used to take upon the appearance of the deceased. It was when I was failing potions...and then the next week I got an O on my homework. You were a really great help."

"Alright then…" Remus said frantically, "Glamour charms."

"It is not possible to change one's bone structure with a Glamour charm. Remember in fourth year how everyone used to call me mushroom nose?" Lily asked, poking her nose as she said so, and immediately regretted it since it still hurt from her fall. The fall had made it even more mushroomy.

"I don't believe it."

"Don't you? Or are you just refusing it, because it doesn't make sense? Or are you scared? Are you scared that when you accept me back, I'll leave again? Or are you just refusing to believe…because your heart won't let you? Or are you thinking that you're just dreaming, and when you'll wake up, it'll be the thirtieth of October, 1981, and none of the events that destroyed your life existed, and you've just been living in denial for the last eleven years. What ever the reason is, let me reassure you. It's really me. Lily Potter."

A gasp was heard from the crowd, people could be heard whispering (loudly) to each other. "Lily Potter! Harry Potter's mother!

"I d-don't know what to say…it's just so unreal…I don't understand…. it doesn't make any logical sense…" Remus stammered.

Lily put an arm around Remus's shoulders. "Magic doesn't always make sense…scratch that, it never makes sense. But the biggest magic is the one that takes place in your heart! You have to believe me, Remus…you have to…"

He looked unsure…but then he opened his arms and gave Lily a hug. "God, Lily… I've missed you so much…"

"Let's go," Lily whispered to Remus, "Or the people in the crowd might actually start taking pictures."

Someone in the crowd whistled. Lily hacked her way through the throng of people, Remus following closely behind, and after a while, reached Harry.

"Well what do you want to do now?" Snape asked, "Save a child in a burning house? Rescue a kitten stuck in a tree? Well? Or has there been enough adventures today to tire even a Gryffindor like you out"

"Let's go shopping!" Looking at the men's stares, she said, "What? Harry needs his school supplies!

The men glanced at each other, then said a single word in usion as Lily dragged them to Flourish and Blott's.

"Women."

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Please leave a review. J Next chapter is the start of the school term…and I still don't know where my CoS is! Things in my house show up in the uncanniest of places, such as the time I found an overdue library book in my mum's wadrobe.


	13. Start of a New Term

A/N! Hi everyone! What did you all get your mum's for Mother's day yesterday? I got my mum a DVD…ah, the wonders of technology…it's the first time in ten years I haven't gotten her flowers.

Disclaimer: I haven't done one of these in a while, so just to refresh your memories, I don't own Harry Potter.

_Start of a New Term_

With bags full of school supplies, Lily collapsed on her bed, Remus sitting in a chair, mumbling something about never wanting to go shopping again. Snape had long retreated to his dungeons. Harry was in his bedroom, reading a book that Hermione had lent him. They had met up with her and the Weasleys later in the afternoon. The Weasleys had heard about Lily's return at the so-called 'confrontation' at Diagon Alley.

It was near night now, and the sun was setting outside the window, giving the room a pinkish glow. Stretching her body out, Lily took her shoes off, and threw them thoughtlessly towards the door just as it opened.

Dumbledore's face appeared in the doorway. He bowed his head slightly, the shoes missing his face by mere inches, making a loud thud as they hit the stone wall in the hallway. For some reason, Lily thought that Dumbledore might have once broken his nose by flying shoes entered her mind. She pushed it away.

Lily grinned sheepishly. "Sorry about that…" she began, but was cut off by Dumbledore.

"It's alright, Lily," he bent down to retrieve the shoes. He walked inside the room, placed the shoes inside the doorway and sat down on a chair at a small table oppisite Remus, " I actually had a reason to come here, and it wasn't to be attacked by flying footwear…I have come with a proposal."

"I'm flattered, really, but don't you think I'm a little bit out of your age group?" Lily asked jokingly, as she sat upright, putting on a serious look, she asked, "What is it?"

Drumming his fingers absently on the table he asked "How would you like it if I offered you a job?"

"What? I- What do you mean…but I still need to go to Ministry…" Lily trailed off, twisting her hair around her fingers, a nervous habit she had developed so long ago she couldn't remember why.

Dumbledore did not speak, but instead thrust an edition of the Evening Prophet in Lily's direction. She didn't have to look far for the article he intended her to read. Curiously, she read the article.

**Lily Potter: Alive Again?**

**The story of Harry Potter has to be one of the most famous and well-known stories in Wizarding history. Nearly eleven years ago, on the 31st of October, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named met his downfall in then fifteen-month year old Harry Potter. As everyone knows, Harry's father, James Potter, and mother, Lily Potter, died that night.**

**But did they? Shoppers in Diagon Alley say they saw a woman, who matches the description of the deceased Lily Potter, Apparate into the alley earlier this morning. She apparently ran into a man, whom people had confirmed as Remus Lupin, who shetalked with. It was this in which people state that they heard the woman claim herself to be Lily Potter.**

**After they talked further, the two walked off together to meet up with her supposed son, none other than Boy-Who-Lived, Harry Potter, whom was accompanied by Hogwarts Potions Professor Severus Snape. After that the four went to various shops, undeterred by the fact there seemed to be a small crowd following them wherever they went.**

**They ran into Gilderoy Lockhart, doing a book signing at Flourish and Blott's, celebrating his autobiography, Magical Me, twenty-seventh week on best-seller lists. There, he and Harry Potter had a photograph taken together. (Page 3.) Lockhart then announced he was going to be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry after the previous teacher's unfortunate death at the end of last term.**

**The four left at five in the afternoon, it is not known where they are staying. The Ministry of Magic has been alerted and the appropriate departments are investigating.**

**What do you think? Please owl us with your opinions.**

**Article by Amy Lythdan**

"Oh…so what's the job?" Lily asked, raising her eyebrows.

"I want you to teach History of Magic." Dumbledore replied calmly.

Lily was surprised. "But…I wasn't _that _good at History of Magic…I mean…I guess my grades were alright…but I don't know how to teach! Don't you need a degree or some other qualification to do that?

"I imagine you may be better with the students then Professor Binns. He is a rather nice fellow, he's just…too old for the job."

" What! Professor Binns is _still _teaching!" Remus exclaimed, jumping up from his seat, "Professor Binns was 'too old for the job' twenty years ago!" Regaining his composure, he sat down again.

"So it would seem…" Dumbledore said. Turning to Lily he said, "That's why I want you to teach them."

"I guess…I mean that way I could stay at Hogwarts…alright why not?"

"Welcome to the faculty at Hogwarts." Dumbledore stated, as he shook Lily's hand. "The new term starts in only two days. You will need to get lesson plans ready…but I think a good night's sleep is in order." He finished, his eyes twinkling.

"G'night." Lily mumbled to Dumbledore's retreating back. Remus sighed. "I wish I could get a job…"

It was two days later, and Lily was making her way down to the Great Hall. The Hogwarts Express was coming in half an hour. Harry had decided to take it along with his friends, leaving Lily quite alone. Lily was nervous about having to teach, but Harry reassured her she couldn't be worse than Professor Binns couldn't.

Binns was worse than he had been in her school days. At least when she was in school he would have noticed if someone had dozed off right under his see-through nose.

She was toying with her hair, seeing what it looked like in the various mirrors she passed. Whatever she did with it, she could not find something she liked, so she left it. She inhaled deeply as she reached the door of the Great Hall. The lack of noise indicated that the students had not arrived yet.

Lily walked in, and to the high table, sitting down on the first seat she came to. She looked around the Great Hall. Not much had changed. The colours of each house still hung from the walls. The ceiling still displayed the weather.

Professor Flitwick was on her left, while Professor Snape was on her right. She was about to moan out load, but the doors to the great hall opened. In filed the students, from the small second years to the seventh years. In the crowd, she found Harry. She smiled and gave him a small wave. He waved back, as he took his seat at the Gryffindor table between Ron and Hermione. The first years had yet to arrive, the lake journey was longer than using the Thestrals…but it was a part of Hogwarts' tradition. Smiling to herself, she remembered her first year lake journey.

_-Flashback-_

_Lily was in a small boat, which was rocking side to side. It was nighttime, and the rain was softly falling from the sky. She thought it looked like a scene one would usually see on a postcard. She looked at the other occupents of her boat. There was a boy with messy black hair who Lily thought looked spoilt. There was another boy, also with black hair, but his was long and looked oily. He looked like he disturbed…maybe even sad. _

_The third other person was a girl she hadn't seen on the train. She had brown hair and blue eyes and seemed to be the cause of the boat's rocking, since the water wasn't that rough. She was jumping up and down, squealing everytime a raindrop landed on her nose. _

_Lily thought it looked magical. And it was, in more ways then just one…_

_-End Flashback-_

The sound of wood scraping on the stone floor broke her thoughts. Little Professor Flitwick had taken out the Sorting Hat's stool, which was about the same height as he was. He placed it down, seating the hat down on top. The students started to slow their chatter, because the entrance of the stool meant they would hear the Sorting Hat's song soon.

A few minutes later the first years walked in. They looked nervous; some of them were shaking at the knees. While they formed an odd looking line, the sorting hat opened its brim wide and sang…

I know you don't want me to end it there, and I don't want to either. But…I can't think of a song…yeah that's not such a good excuse but…Yep. Anyway…please review! I'll put review responses on my bio starting with this chapter, so maybe a day or so after you review look there and it should be there.

And I will like to thank (yet again) everyone who's been reading this story!

Cheers!.

Thoughts And Pondering


	14. Sorting Hat's Song

A/N: ¤ Hits computer with fork ¤ This…piece…of….junk…likes….to….delete…stuff….thoughtlessly…I need a better computer ¤grumbles¤ Anyhow, here is the new chapter.

_The Sorting Hat's Song. _

Quite a long time before right now,

The founders four were here,

Building the school as it is now,

Creating the tale you'll hear.

Gryffindor, a courageous man,

Formed the house of the brave.

Daring and honourable is

How Gryffindors behave.

Hufflepuff, a friendly woman,

Formed the house of the loyal,

Hufflepuffs are kind and

Hardworking and full of toil.

Ravenclaw, a clever woman.

Formed the house of the wise.

Knowledge and wisdom are

Ravenclaw's enterprise.

Slytherin, an ambitious man,

Formed the house of the sly.

He liked those of pure ancestry,

And that's what he went by.

These are the founders' four houses,

Which one will you be in?

Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw,

Gryfindor, Slytherin?

So put me down your head,

I am not here to scare,

I'll just see where you're meant to be,

And I will put you there!

Every-one clapped as the Sorting Hat finished his song. Lily could here people muttering "The song was rather short this year, and one person yelled out "One line didn't even make sense! An enterprise is a journey! Stupid hat!" They fell silent as Professor McGonagall opened the scroll, ready to read out the list of new first years.

"Andrews, Michael"

A small boy with brown hair and eyes made his way slowly up to the stool. Lily thought he looked familiar, but she couldn't place from where. Michael nervously put the hat on his head. After a minute or so, the Sorting hat opened its brim wide and declared "Ravenclaw!" The Ravenclaw table clapped loudly, as Michael went to join his peers.

Lily's concentration wavered, as she thought back to her own sorting.

_Flashback._

_They were inside. They could still see the rain falling from the ceiling, but it never touched them. It was warm inside, but Lily didn't realise because she was shivering. Her knees shook, and she was scared they were going to give way beneath her. Why did her surname have to start with an E? It was so early in the alphabet…_

'_Black, Sirius' _

_Lily watched as she saw a boy go up to the four-legged stool, which made a creaking sound, and put the hat on his head. The hat slid down to his shoulders, obstructing his face. There was a pause. The whole hall was silent, waiting for a response. _

"_GRYFFINDOR" The hat shouted. There was a silence. Then a table with red and gold over hangings started clapping and cheering as Sirius made his way to the table. _

_Lily stared at the floor, scuffing the tip of her shoe on the concrete floor. She looked up, seeing the night sky twinkling down on her. The clouds had dispersed and it had stopped raining. Then… _

"_Evans, Lily!" Professor McGonagall shouted. _

_Lily felt her knees shake underneath her. She walked slowly to the stool. It would be just her luck if it broke underneath her. Stop thinking negative thoughts, she told herself. They wouldn't do her any good. She sat on the stool, which rocked slightly. She slipped the hat on her head. She was looking at darkness. It was like it had suddenly turned into night. The chair rocked, and Lily lost her balance and fell. The chair fell as well, and one of the legs snapped off. Lily blushed, but non-chalantly put the hat on her head, admist the laughs of her peers. _

_End Flashback._

Lily chuckled, shaking herself out of her reverie. It was funny, though at the time it wasn't. Just in time to hear Professor McGonagall say "Lovegood, Luna!"

A young girl of about eleven made her way up to the now three-legged stool. She looked half dazed, as if she were unaware of her surroundings. Her supposed-to-be knee high socks were down to her ankles. She was wearing the most bizarre jewelry Lily had ever seen. A necklace of what Lily thought must be Butterbeer corks were strung around her neck. Her tangled dirty blond hair hung halfway down her back.

In all, she reminded her of Trelawney. Just without the glasses. Luna put the hat on her head, and it fell to her shoulders. Lily waited in anticipation. Most people's Sortings took a minute or so, in some exceptional cases up to ten. What she didn't know was that this girl was going to set a new Hogwarts record, the longest Sorting in a century.

It took thirty-eight minutes and twenty nine seconds. Most people had stopped paying attention, striking up conversations with their friends. The only person whose attention was still fully captured by the Sorting Hat was Dumbledore's.

Then the hat opened its brim wide and announced 'RAVENCLAW'. At first no one had realised the hat had spoken. But when Luna made her way to the Ravenclaw table, the Ravenclaws stood up and applauded for their housemate.

Then the candles went out. Lily heard multiple girls squeal. "Severus?" Lily questioned. There was no answer from him. She tried again, finally poking the spot she supposed her colleague's back would be. Her hand touched nothing.

"P-professor Dumbledore?"

"Yes, Lily?"

"What happened?"

"I'm not quite sure, Lily."

"What does that mean?" Lily asked apprehensively. Seconds after she asked this question there was a shattering noise. Every mirror in the room shattered into pieces and every reflective surface cracked. Lily traced a crack in her spoon. It was jagged, remarkably like Harry's scar.

She looked around the room for a second time, looking for a little light. But when her eyes went over where a corner would be she heard someone hiss "…lies…" she tried to move her head, but she couldn't. She hit her head on the table all was dark again.

"Mum?" Someone was shaking her lightly. She opened her eyes warily. "Hi, Harry." She said. "Mum! You're alright!" Harry sank back into his chair with relief.

"Where am I? What happened?" Lily asked.

"You're in the Hospital Wing." So she was.

"Drink this." Madam Pomfrey came over handing Lily a smoking goblet.

Lily obediently took a sip, and made a face. Not the tastiest stuff in the world. Madam Pomfrey bustled over, retrieving Lily's goblet. "Stop making those faces, Professor Potter, what did you excpect, pumpkin juice?"

"No, Coca-Cola." Lily replied. Harry burst out laughing but Madam Pomfrey looked merely confused. "What's Coca-Cola?"

"Don't worry," Lily answered waving her hand, "Muggle thing."

Madam Pomfrey sighed and shook her head. "Try and get a pleasant night's sleep, Professor."

"So what happened?" Lily questioned again.

"I don't know, I didn't find out until the lights were came back on. Your face was down, and it looked like you fell asleep on the table or something. Snape took you to the hospital wing, and nearly nobody saw you leave.

"You didn't hear that voice?" Lily curled her legs close to her chest as she asked. Was that a ghost in the corner, or just a trick of the light?

"What voice?" Harry replied.

"Don't worry about it." Lily said, pulling up the bed covers to her chin. "Luckily, tomorrow is a Sunday, so I can sleep. I feel like I was trampled by a hippogriff. You better go to bed; it's getting late.

'Goodnight." Harry said, as he stood up, off the plastic hospital chair.

"I love you." Lily replied.

"I love you too."

_Dream_

_Lily was sitting on a bathroom floor. The bathroom had a mirror wall, and Lily looked at it. She didn't see her reflection. Not one of her current age, anyway. The girl in the mirror was eleven years old. The girl in the mirror was in a bedroom, opening an envelope made of thick, heavy parchment. _

_It was like there was a television spanning the whole wall, except it was on mute. The Lily in the mirror teared the top of the envelope off, and extracting what was inside. _

_Then the image changed. There was a mist, in a dark green forest. She heard a chilling voice. The same voice which had spoken the very words that had killed her. Lord Voldemort._

"_I know your back, Lily, I'm not surprised…you're pretty good… for a Mudblood…" _

Lily punched the glass. "Shut up, you bastard."

_Lily's hands were bleeding; the glass had cut into her skin. Except it didn't hurt. And that's when she realised it was a dream._

_End Dream_

Lily landed with a thump; she had fallen out of bed again. Madam Pomfrey came in due to the noise. "What are you doing out of bed, young lady?" She asked with her hands on her hips, making Lily feel like a schoolgirl again.

"Fell." Lily said simply, rising to her feet and pulling herself to her feet. "I feel like a just ran a hundred mile marathon."

Light was streaming out of the curtains, hitting Lily in the face. It still felt like summer, even though it was already spring.

"I thought you said you felt like you were trampled by a hippogriff." Madam Pomfrey replied, changing the water for the flowers in a glass vase on Lily's bedside table.

"How's this for a happy medium," Lily said, squinting her eyes against the sun's rays, "I feel like I ran a hundred mile marathon only to be trampled by a hippogriff at the end!"

Madam Pomfrey made no answer but just shook her head. "You better go, you know, it's Monday morning."

Lily was shocked. "I slept Sunday away?" She squealed, surprised.

"Yes, Harry was quite worried, he spent half the day here yesterday with Mister Weasley and Miss Granger."

Lily made a mental note to see Harry after classes today just to see how he was going. He seemed happy enough. Maybe she wasn't spending enough time with him?

"I guess I better get going then." Lily sighed.

"Wait, before you go take this!" Madam Pomfrey instructed, as she handed Lily a smoking goblet of a colorless liquid. Lily downed it, trying to keep a straight face.

"Bye." Lily said, walking out of the room. The History of Magic classroom was on the third floor, meaning she didn't have far to walk. And her office was on the same level, so she didn't have to walk far.

She went down the stairs leading to the third floor. But on the bottom, someone was waiting for her. A green, pillow wearing house-elf.

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A/N: What you think? Anyway, I know I said I would do Review Responses in my bio, but when I just finished, my computer crashed. We are getting quite close to 100 reviews! Can we make it? If you're the lucky one, maybe I'll send you a lollipop if I can fit it in my printer.

Till next time then!

Thoughts And Pondering.


	15. History of Magic

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! We'll reach 100 this time! We will endeavor… well you get the point…I'm just glad that I've gotten this far, I usually give up in the middle of something, but I won't this time!

_History of Magic._

"Mrs Potter!" The house-elf yelled, grabbing Lily's hand into it's own green one and shaking it vigorously, "What an honour it is!" The house-elf's eyes widened considerably as he lowered his voice to a loud whisper. "Bad things are going to happen here soon. Very soon. Dobby is warning Mrs Potter to get out while she still can!" Dobby finished dramatically, tugging on the corners of his pillowcase.

Lily non-chalantly pushed some of her hair out of her face. "I'm going to be late. I still have to get my things for my class, which starts in five minutes." She tried to move, but Dobby stood in her way. The portraits hanging on the wall laughed. Lily turned around. "Don't you portraits have anything better to do with your time than sleep, wake up and laugh! If that's all you do, I'm sure as hell never getting a portrait of me done!" She yelled angrily, her cheeks nearly as red as her hair.

"We wouldn't want ye adornin' our walls!" Yelled one of the portraits, a brown haired man with gray hairs in his beard, a steak hanging halfway out of his mouth.

Lily refrained from the urge to yell something rude and uncalled for, and instead turned to Dobby, who was displaying an oddly innocent look. Dobby tugged on his pillowcase again.

"The walls have ears. Be careful, Mrs Potter, mother of the Great Harry Potter. I is going now." Dobby whispered before he disappeared.

Lily grabbed where he had been, but to no avail. The portraits snickered again. Flustered, Lily ran down the staircase, nearly forgetting about the trick step. What had Dobby meant? Bad things happening here, at Hogwarts? Nonsense, Hogwarts was one of the safest places on earth! She walked into her office, gathering her books, ignoring the goblet of pumpkin juice on her wooden desk.

She ran into the classroom, only fifteen seconds late. Her first class of the day was third-year Ravenclaws. The Ravenclaws all turned and watched Lily as she entered the classroom. History of Magic took place in a small, boring classroom with a single window. Outside it was a boring cloudy day.

Lily dropped her books on her desk. They made a dull thudding sound. "Hello, I'm Professor Potter." She said, as she went to stand behind her desk.

"Good morning Professor Potter." The Ravenclaws replied monotonusly.

"So…what did you learn about last year?" Lily asked, hoping that whoever answered might sound a little bit more enthusiastic, though it wasn't very likely. History of Magic was one of the most boring subjects ever to be taught at Hogwarts.

After about half a minute, one girl put her hand up, sweeping her fringe out of her face.

"Miss…?" Lily asked.

"Chang, Professor. Last year we learnt about Goblin Wars."

"Anyone want to be more specific? Which years?" Lily asked, wondering if anyone actually paid enough attention to know.

The boy next to Miss Chang raised his hand. "Mr…?" Lily asked.

"Wadeton. The Goblin rebellion of 1610, the Goblin War of 1700, the Goblin rebellion of 1716-"

"In other words," Miss Chang interrupted, "Goblin Wars…and rebellions. " A few people laughed.

"Alright then…" Lily paced around her desk, "What would you like to learn about this year?"

A boy near the window, with blond bangs falling into his honey coloured eyes, raised his hand. "How about Goblin Wars?" he asked quietly with a small smile on his face. People laughed again.

"Any _serious _suggestions?" Lily asked again.

"How about Witch-Burning in the Fourteenth Century?" asked the boy situated near the window. There were a couple of nods. "We did an essay in the summer holidays about it, but we were never taught about it in class. It would have been easier to complete the essay if we had been given some knowledge of the topic beforehand. I know it's a little bit late now, but it still interests me, and I for one would be interested in learning more about it."

"Okay." Lily replied. She had anticipated that if anyone actually suggested something, this would be it. "Open your 'A History of Magic' books to chapter IV, page 53. I am guessing you all read this to complete your essays over the holidays, but it will help to read it over again. Anyone want to read first?

Mr. Wadeton raised his hand. Lily nodded.

"_Non-magic people, (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognizing it." _Mr. Wadeton read loudly and clearly.

"Why do you think that Muggles were afraid of magic?" Lily asked.

The blond-haired boy answered quietly, "Because they were scared that witches would use their magic to harm them, or they thought that people who could perform magic were habouring demons…"

"Excellent, Mr…"

"Davidson, Professor."

Why not wizards?" Lily asked the class. "Why were they classified 'Witch Burnings' and not Wizard Burnings?"

Miss Chang answered, "Because the majority of people Muggles found able to perform witchcraft, were female."

"Good. Would you like to continue reading?"

Miss Chang nodded, swept her silky black hair out of her face, and continued reading.

" _On the rare occasion they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame-Freezing charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation." _

"Why do you think that was?" Lily questioned. She looked at the class. Most of them were supplying here with blank stares, Miss Chang was plaiting a strand of loose hair and Mr Davidson was looking out the window. "Anyone?"

"_I _have something to say!" declared a boy up the back. "This is stupid! What is the point of this? This is as bloody interesting as listening to Binns!

Lily stopped her pacing and slammed her hands down on her desk a little too forcibly, causing a sheet of parchment to flutter off.

"And what would _you _rather learn about?" She asked, amazed that she could keep her voice calm.

His brown eyes narrowed, and snarled, "You."

"What about me?" Lily asked calmly, though inside she was shaking. If it was fury or fear, she couldn't be too sure.

If it was possible, his eyes narrowed even further. "Everyone knows you're dead. In my opinion you're just another ghost droning on about some stuff that went on centuries ago. What's so interesting about history anyway? People should stop thinking about the past and start thinking about the present. Only _boring _people think about the past. So what's so good about history anyway?"

"People learn about history so they don't repeat mistakes made in the past in the future!" Miss Chang yelled, turning around in her seat. Professor Potter is better than Professor Binns is! He couldn't even remember our names!"

The bell rang, signaling the end of double History of Magic. Saved by the bell. Lily stared at the boy. "If you behave like that in class again, I will issue you a detention. Do I make myself clear? Mr…"

The boy stared back. "I'm Nathian Lythdan." He left the room muttering under his breath, which sounded like "A detention...I'm so scared..."Lily let out a breath that she had not known she had been holding.

Lily ran to her room. She wiped her eyes and sat on the end of her bed. She hugged her pillow close to her chest. She crossed her legs and just cried. Let it all out. "I'm not that bad, am I? I'm not that boring, am I?" she said out loud. The door creaked and Lily turned around.

"Mum?"

Lily hastily tried to wipe away her tears using the back of her hand. "Harry? What are you doing here?"

"I came to see how you were." Harry replied rather hastily, his glasses slipping a bit.

"What happened?"

Harry sat down on the bed beside Lily, taking in the tear strains on her face. " I could ask you that question…"

Lily smiled sadly. Pushing her hair out of her face, she answered, "How about I'll tell you if you tell me. You first."

Harry sighed. "Alright then. Lockhart gave me a detention."

"What! Why?"

"Because I refused to howl like a werewolf in Defense Against the Dark Arts."

Lily could not help but burst out laughing. Harry frowned. "It's not that funny." Lily stopped laughing abruptly. Harry gave a small smile. "OK, maybe it was. The fact remains. I have detention. Anyway, now you have to tell me what happened to you."

Lily put a room around Harry's shoulder. "Are you sure you want to know?"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Why would have I asked, if I didn't want to know?

Lily sighed. "Fine, I'll tell you. One of my students misbehaved…that's all."

"That's good."

It was Lily's turn to raise an eyebrow. Straightening the sleeve of her black robe, she asked, "Why is that good?"

"Someone actually stayed awake long enough to misbehave."

Lily laughed again. "Thank-you Harry, I needed the laughs. Shouldn't you get going? Break is over."

Harry stared at Lily. "I bet I could still beat the teacher."

"Huh?"

"Oh, nothing, just thinking that Oliver Wood will probably wake me up at the crack of dawn tomorrow for Quidditch practice." Harry said, as he looked at his watch.

"Is that the time? Sorry Mum, have to go." He let Lily kiss him on the forehead as he raced off in the direction of the staircase.

It was then when Lily remembered what class she had. Second-year Gryffindors. She sighed but didn't quicken her pace greatly. Let them all be early for once. This class couldn't be worse than the last.

&&&&&&&&&&

Lily snuggled into her bed. The day had been more successful after the Ravenclaw mishap of the morning. It had been a pretty good day. If only she could forget Nathian Lythdan telling her she was dead. It just repeated over and over again in her mind.

But as soon as her head hit the pillow, she fell asleep. It had been a long day.

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What do you think? Anyway, I want to ask a question. Do you want a happy ending or a sad ending? Please tell me in a review, it'll help me make up my mind. I have two endings in my mind, though I'm not sure which I should use.

In the next chapter, something will happen that doesn't happen in CoS cannon, but takes place in PoA. Can you guess what it is? (It's not very hard…)

Anyway, please review, even it's only three words! Just click the prettiful little button down there, kay?


	16. The Escape Of Sirius Black

The second article is pretty much taken from my other story, Transfiguration. I didn't feel like writing another one. --. It has a couple of slight alterations. Anyway…

WE DID IT! WE REACHED A HUNDRED REVIEWS! YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST! And this is my longest chapter yet. The hundreth reviewer was AnnF. And dweem-angel, you guessed right!

hands reviewers lollipops-

Anyway...

The Escape of Sirius Black

Lily walked down the hallway, a stack of student's essays in one of her hands. It was only the first Friday since the start of the term and Lily already felt tired. Who knew teaching could take so much out of you? And she still had to grade the seventh year essays, which was annoying, for some of them still couldn't write legibly with a quill. Maybe she should stop assigning them homework. It was a pretty much win-win situation, apart from the fact that the less motivated students wouldn't learn much.

Travelling down the staircase, Lily had to tell herself out loud to skip the trick step. On her second day, she had forgotten, and stepped right on it. Luckily, Harry had come five minutes later, and had helped her out. Having to ask a student would have been very, very, embarrassing.

She heard voices down the end of the staircase.

"No-one asked for your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood."

"Ron, no!"

"What's wrong Weasley? Scared of me? Or…are you scared of the Mudblood?" Lily heard a snicker.

"Come _on _Ron, he's not worth our time." The speaking people came into view, and like she had assumed, it was Harry, Ron, Hermione and Draco Malfoy. Draco was standing halfway down the staircase, looking down at Harry, Hermione and Ron. Standing next to Draco were his two friends, Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe.

"See you around, Mudblood." Malfoy nodded at Hermione. Crabbe and Goyle tried to imitate Draco. "Muggle-lover." He nodded to Ron. Ron's face darkened.

"Excuse me, Mr. Malfoy?" Lily had arrived at the top of the staircase. "Would you like to repeat what you just said? Lily asked with her hands on her hips as well as she could, considering she still had fifteen essays under an arm. (History of Magic wasn't a very popular NEWT subject)

"I said, 'I'll see you in potions tomorrow'" Malfoy said immediately, no trace of a lie on his face.

Lily raised an eyebrow. Draco Malfoy was a good liar. Must run in the family. Lily scowled at the thought of Lucius Malfoy. He had slipped through the Auror's fingers five times during Voldemort's rise. Snakes were very slippery.

"Don't lie to a teacher, Mr. Malfoy. If I catch you insulting another student again, I will not hesitate to issue you a detention."

Malfoy did nothing but put his nose in the air and walk off, his friends following him.

Lily approached Harry. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"

"Sorry, Mum," Harry started, wiping his glasses with the sleeve of his hand, "Oliver Wood organised another training session, but the Slytherins turned up-"

"-to train their new _Seeker" _Ron interrupted.

"Seeker?" Lily asked blankly.

"Quidditch, Professor." Ron answered.

"Oh!" Lily exclaimed in realisation. "Don't you tell me you're involved in that silly sport too!" Lily began twirling her hair around her right index finger.

Harry nodded, while Ron exclaimed, outraged, "Silly! What are you calling silly!"

"You could get seriously hurt! What happens if in the next game you take a bludger to the head or something? You could die!"

"Professor, no one has died in Quidditch before! A referee disappeared and was found in the Sahara desert a year later, but that's the worst that's ever happened. You can't stop him from playing! He's the youngest Seeker in a century! You can't stop him from playing!" Ron finished frantically, then taking a few deep breaths.

"I never said I was going to stop him from playing. What's the point?" Lily ruffled Harry's hair. "You're just like your father, you know."

Harry smiled a small smile. "I know, you tell me every day."

"Sorry."

"It's alright. I kind of like it. Every time you talk about Dad, it makes me feel like I know him better. It's like he's becoming a real person. Not that he wasn't a real person or anything, but…more real to me. I feel like he's a part of me now." Harry glanced at his watch, and stepped back in alarm.

"I'm late for my detention with Lockhart!"

"What's he going to make you do?" Ron asked.

"Answer his fan mail." Harry sighed.

Lily groaned sympathetically. "Bye, Harry."

"Bye, Mum."

"Wait!"

Harry tripped over at the sudden shout. The portraits on the walls snickered, the man with the steak the loudest.

Lily glared at them. They shut up immediately. "I need you to come with me to the Ministry tomorrow. We're going again." Lily told Harry.

"That should be fine, I don't think I'm doing anything. I'll meet you at your room at nine." Harry pushed his glasses up his nose as he left, Ron and Hermione following closely behind.

"Bye." Lily said, and quietly added while picking up an essay which had fallen out of her hands, "And this time we're taking a portkey."

Seven o'clock the next morning, Lily was spreading her jam on her toast at the head table, when the owls flew in. There weren't many students awake this early on a Saturday morning; so most owls flew off in the direction of the owlery when they failed to locate their masters.

The ceiling displayed a cloudless spring day, and there was a pleasant draft entering from outside.

Lily's Daily Prophet owl had dead straight accuracy, and today he was aiming for her toast. The paper landed directly in the middle of her plate. Peeling the newspaper from the toast, Lily caught the headline.

SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPED!

"Sirius escaped? From where?" Lily muttered under her breath. Wiping the jam off the article with her sleeve, she proceeded to read it.

"**Azkaban's most infamous criminal was found missing from his high security cell when the guards didn't find him when delivering his breakfast. People are scared that an incident like what happened eleven years ago, where Black murdered thirteen people with one curse, after the death of the family he was Secret Keeping for, the Potters. **

Black was sent to Azkaban on thirteen charges of homicide and one charge of treason.

****

You can read the original article, printed on the day of the attack, on page five.

Article Continued on page three.

Article by Amy Lythdan.

Lily was scared her jaw was going to hit the floor. Sirius was in Azkaban? And one charge of treason? Sirius wasn't even their secret keeper!

Lily flicked through to page five. At least this page was devoid of jam. But that didn't matter much to Lily.

****

Thirteen People Dead: Twelve Muggles and a Wizard: The Work of Sirius Black!

****

An attack in Muggle London today saw the death of thirteen people, twelve of them Muggles. The one wizard who died has been identified as Peter Pettigrew, the department of Magical Law Enforcement, are trying to find his body, to find out what spell could have caused his death, but the discovery of any remains are low.

Muggle witnesses say that Mr. Pettigrew shouted out, "Sirius! You betrayed them! Lily and James!" before Mr. Black blasted the street apart with his wand, killing everyone unfortunate enough to have been in the way.

Lily and James Potter died two nights ago in a tragic attack on their house by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Their only son, Harry, survived.

Sirius Black has been moved to a holding cell in the Ministry while awaiting deportation to Azkaban.

Witnesses' memories have been wiped, and the department of Muggle Relations have told Muggle emergency services of a gas explosion.

"No." Lily whispered. "I don't believe it. Sirius killed Peter? They were best friends! Sirius wasn't our secret keeper…Peter was…Peter…betrayed us to Voldemort. Why would Sirius kill Peter? Maybe he was so angry, he couldn't help but attack him. The only people who knew we switched were Sirius and Peter."

Lily glanced at her watch. It was only seven thirty. "I need to talk to Remus." She whispered, before standing up, leaving her toast uneaten. The paper under one arm, she went to her room. The spring morning did not reflect how Lily was feeling. It was serene and peaceful.

Lily saw her reflection in the mirror. She looked like something out of a Muggle horror movie. Her face was paler than usual, and her hair was messy where she had clutched at it while reading the articles.

She grabbed some Floo Powder off the mantelpiece, nearly knocking down a Wizard photo of her, James and Harry, and through the powder it in the fireplace. Giant green flames erupted.

"Remus Lupin!" She shouted into the emerald green flames.

Remus's face immediately appeared in the fire, and by the look of him he had just woken up.

"What?" he asked disgruntedly.

"Remus! Come in!" Lily yelled, brandishing her copy of the Daily Prophet.

"What are you waving around, Lily?"

"I'll tell you when you come in."

"The last time I heard those words, Peter had set a bucket of water on the top of the door. It's the oldest prank in the book, but I fell for it straight away."

"Funny you mention Peter. I want to discuss something with you concerning him."

"Lily, Peter died eleven years ago." Remus said sadly, his eyes facing the floor.

"Did he?" Lily asked cryptically.

"Yes." Remus sighed.

"Look, just come in, please?"

"Alright, but this better be worth my time." Remus clambered through the fireplace. He was wearing a pair of blue undersized pyjamas, and a matching blue sleeping cap. He sat down on a chair at the coffee table, and accidentally kicked one of the legs, causing the table to roar loudly. Remus shifted his chair back from the table.

Lily sat down at the table. Remus looked at her like she was insane, staring from the table and up to her. Lily put her head in her hands. "Remus, it's only a table. Its roar is worse than it's bite."

Remus sat up straight in his chair in alarm. "It bites?" he asked.

"REMUS!" Lily bellowed. "It's a _table. _It won't eat you." The table roared at the noise, causing Remus to back away even further.

"Are you sure?" he asked with trepidation.

Lily shrugged her shoulders, while untying her hair. "I'm still here, aren't I? Why do you have a phobia of tables, anyway? "

"It's a long story, filled with wandering through mystical countries and battling beasts of great size…" Remus trailed off, then burst into laughter.

Lily stared at Remus. "It wasn't that funny." Remus couldn't hear her through his laughter. Finally, as a last resort, Lily kicked the table leg. It let out another loud roar, which made Remus shrink back in fear.

"Are you going to listen to me now?

Remus nodded.

"Did you read the Daily Prophet this morning?"

"I don't get the Daily Prophet. They have biased articles." Remus yawned loudly.

"Well read this." Lily passed the paper to Remus, who took it in one had, and removed his sleeping cap with the other, since it had started to fall over his eyes.

"What's this, an advertisement for jam? And you get a free sample?"

"Remus, don't make me kick the table again. Just read the headline out to me."

"Lily, I'm not really afraid of tables…it just scared me."

"I already figured that out." Lily smiled. She grabbed a jug of water of the windowsill and poured herself a glass of water. "I'm not particularly fond of roaring tables myself." She said, raising the glass to her mouth and taking a sip.

"Water?" She asked Remus.

"No, thank-you. Whose idea was it?"

"Dumbledore's."

"That explains it."

"OK, I'll read it now…Sirius Black Escaped…" It took a few moments for the information to sink in. Sirius! Escaped? Why? How? Lily…you must be feeling really upset…he betrayed you to Voldemort! So-"

Lily interrupted Remus. "Actually, Sirius wasn't my secret keeper."

Remus stared blankly at Lily than suddenly exclaimed, "WHAT?"

"Peter was."

"No." Remus whispered, shaking his head from side to side. He slipped out of the wooden chair and onto the floor of Lily's room. "No. It can't be…It just can't be…but why Sirius kill Peter then?

"Did Sirius kill Peter?"

"Lily, a street full of witnesses attested that they saw him blow up the street."

"Well, maybe they didn't see what they thought they saw!"

"But why did you switch secret keepers without telling me? Didn't you trust me to keep a secret? WELL, IT SEEMS LIKE YOUR CHOICES WEREN'T THAT GREAT, EITHER, LILY!" Remus had gone from sad to mad in a matter of seconds. Lily had never seen Remus angry before.

She guessed finding secrets out about your friends eleven years old could do that to anyone.

"Remus."

"YOU OBVIOUSLY DECIDED YOU COULDN'T TRUST ME! AND WHERE DID THAT GET YOU? DEAD, LILY, DEAD!

"REMUS!" Lily screeched as loud as she could, without causing irreversible damage to her larynx.

Remus instantly deflated. "Lily…I'm so sorry, I didn't meant to blow up like that."

"It's alright, Remus." Lily reassured him, patting him on the shoulder. "It's natrual to get angry sometimes."

There was a rapping sound coming from the door. Lily walked over to it and opened it. "Hi, Harry. You ready?"

Harry was wearing his black school robe over some muggle clothes, a blue jumper and a pair of jeans. His hair was as messy as ever.

"Where are you going?" Remus asked sleepily, yawning again.

"Ministry." Lily said, "Do you want to come?"

Remus sent Lily a bemused expression. "What, wearing this?" He asked, pointing to his sleepwear.

"Good point." Lily took a comb and tackled Harry's hair with it.

"Lily, I'm going to get home and catch a few more hours of sleep." He headed back to the fireplace and took a handful of Floo Powder. "Oh," Remus pointed to Lily and Harry; "you might as well give up. It's a lost cause." He threw the powder in and disappeared.

Lily looked through one of her cupboards. "I know I have it in here…" she muttered to her self, throwing out random hygiene products from the shelves. "Aha! Found it!

Lily held up a tub of Muggle gel.

"No Mum, please don't put that in my hair!" Harry backed away from his mother.

"Why?"

"You'll make me look like Malfoy!"

"Are you sure?"

"Very."

"Okay, are you ready to go? Just hold onto the Portkey," Lily held out a broken tennis ball, "and we'll be going when I get to three. One…Two…Three…Lily felt the familiar tug behind her navel, as she travelled to the Ministry of Magic.

She hit solid ground a minute later and swayed on the spot slightly. Harry was not so lucky; he lost his balance and fell right over.

"Oh, you must be Mrs. Potter!" A squat woman with mousy brown hair and sharp, pointy teeth said, as she walked over to them. "I am Dolores Umbridge, Senior Under Secretary to the Minister."

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So what do you think? Long chapter huh? Well for me anyway. The table thing is the perfect example of exactly why you SHOULDN'T write after midnight.

Please leave a review! I have a day off school tomorrow…well more like today…so maybe a review will motivate me to write another chapter…maybe…all right it will! So even it's three words, tell me what you think!

Til next time,

A sleepy Thoughts And Pondering.


	17. You're Dead

A/N: Thanks to all who reviewed! I'm on school holidays now! YAY! Updates will be quicker for the next two weeks that means…then back to the dreaded place called 'school'. And I uploaded another story, called Wrongful Imprisonment, where James is in Azkaban because Fudge thinks he murdered Lily. If you have time, check it out!

Lesson learnt while typing this chapter: Save often. Unless you want to find yourself retyping a page and a half.

**Wish Upon A Falling Star by **_Thoughts and Pondering_

**Chapter Seventeen: You're Dead**

"Thank you, Mrs Potter, Mr. Potter," She said, turning to face Harry. "Please follow me to the Minister's office." She smiled, showing her pointed teeth. Lily followed Umbridge, past a beautiful fountain with a witch, a centaur, and a house-elf, which Lily noticed, looked rather like Dobby. There was a small plaque telling whoever read it that is symbolized unity between all the different creatures in the Wizarding world.

Lily thought if it was really true, the witch would be standing dominantly over the house-elf and centaur, however, in this fountain, they were standing next to each other like equals. Maybe it was simply the artist's vision. She could not deny that the fountain was a true piece of art.

Lily and Harry followed Umbridge into the elevator. There were many pieces of paper flitting around. Lily was about to ask what they were, but Harry beat her to it.

"Ms. Umbridge, what are those?" he asked, pointing to the paper. Lily suddenly noticed what Umbridge was wearing. What a hideous cardigan!

She answered, in her saccharine voice, "Mr. Potter, those are interdepartmental memos. "We used to use owls, but the smell was unbearable. Owls are filthy creatures." She wrinkled her short nose. "Ah, we're here." She beckoned them into a room.

When Lily walked into the room, she could not help but let out a gasp of appreciation. The Minister's office, (was it an office?) was simply beautiful. Some small nagging voice in the back of her mind told her that Minister should donate some of his wealth to charity, but she pushed the thought away. The carpet was plush red, and all the furniture was made out of fine oak. It was bewitching.

"Mrs. Potter, Mr. Potter, this is the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge."

"Good morning, Mr. Fudge." Harry said politely.

Cornelius Fudge was sitting behind his oak desk, his head bent over some paperwork, but he lifted his head when he heard Umbridge enter the room. Even though he was indoors, he was still wearing his lime green bowler hat. He looked up when he heard Umbridge say his name.

"Ah, Dolores, so you managed to locate them?" He asked, putting his quill into his inkpot.

"Yes, Minister." She had dropped the syrupy voice, and now she talked monotonusly.

"Mrs. Potter! It's wonderful to see you again!" Fudge stood up and shook Lily's hand.

"You too, Mr. Potter!" He shook Harry's hand.

Lily furrowed her brow. Where had Fudge ever seen her before? In the newspaper?

"Now, I know what you're here for. I'll just go and retrieve your files from the Office of Records." Fudge stood up quickly. He picked up the inkpot and quill and took them with him.

The moment Fudge walked out of his office, Umbridge rounded on Lily. "So what _really_ happened, Mrs. Potter?" she asked, all sugary again.

"What do you mean by that?" Lily replied. _What did this woman mean, with her huge bulging eyes, sugary voice and little pointy teeth? Was it even a woman? Could it be some kind of over grown toad?_

"You an I both know that you can't really be Lily Potter. People don't come back to life. Unless you're going to admit to owning an unauthorized time-turner. Because that's what I think happened. You used a time-turner, made a mistake, and ended up eleven years in the future." Umbridge declared, sitting behind Fudge's desk.

"You must have never paid attention in school. Can't go forward. You can only mess time up from the behind." Lily said, clenching her hand into fists. How dare that woman accuse her of stealing a time-turner! She, having worked in the Department of Mysteries, was actually authorized to use time-turners in her work.

"You're a liar."

"Don't talk to my mum like that." Harry whispered in a dangerously low voice, his face suddenly turning nasty. His green eyes glared at Umbridge.

Umbridge turned to Harry, and leant over the desk so her face was mere inches away from his. "Hasn't your _mother_ ever taught you manners, you rude little brat?" She whispered, her voice losing all its sugary tones. It was loud enough for Lily to hear. She could hear blood pumping in her ears. While she, Lily Potter, was not at all perfect, how dare that…_over-grown toad_…criticize Harry? He may not be perfect either, but he had better manners then that... that…

"Oh…and yes, and I won't forget about how you escaped from that holding cell my good friend Dawlish was helping me with."

Lily was confused. What cell? Then she remembered. Of course! The police station! But…how had Umbridge known about her return from her dead before she even knew about it herself?

"You poor dear," Umbridge started, her voice becoming syrupy again, "You look confused. Let me explain it to you. Early on the morning of the first of August, we recorded a huge burst of magical energy, in a muggle residence. A violation of the Statute of Secrecy. I sent Dawlish in to investigate. As well as being an Auror, he has been working undercover as a Muggle policeman for quite some time now. Of course, it had to be you. While Dawlish may deal with dead people in his jobs as both a police person and an Auror, he wasn't quite used to dead people…coming back to life. Because they simply don't. Once someone is dead, they stay dead. They don't turn up eleven years later, pretending nothing has happened. One reason I think you are not Lily Potter is because her body…is still in her coffin."

Lily's emerald-green eyes were as wide as galleons. This explained nearly everything. Nearly. Umbridge was right about one thing, and that was that when people died, they stayed dead. She was staring to have doubts about herself. Was she Lily Potter? Or was she some imposter? Was she alive? Or was she a solid ghost of sorts? Or was she a shadow, a lost soul? Who was she? Why was she here? _How _was she here? What was she doing here? Where was she going to go in the future? When did all this start getting so complicated? Her head was spinning. Was this the truth? Or just some elaborate lies?

Funny how getting some answers could just present you with more questions. The most important one was why was she here?

Philosophers had been trying to answer similar questions for centuries. She couldn't stand it anymore. She needed something to change the subject. She voiced the one thought that had been bugging her ever since she met this _Dolores Umbridge._

"Are you sure that you don't belong in a zoo enclosure somewhere?" Lily asked quietly, so Harry wouldn't overhear. Finally, the question had stopped gnawing at her brain.

The look on Umbridge's face was priceless. First she just opened and closed her mouth…then…"MRS. POTTER! I WILL NOT BE TALKED TO IN THIS MANNER!" Umbridge yelled, standing up as tall as she could, which wasn't very much. Umbridge was very short, maybe slightly taller than Harry.

Fudge chose this inopportune moment to return with Lily's files. "I'm back!" he announced, then looked at Lily and Umbridge who were both standing up, glaring at each other, and Umbridge standing behind his desk. From the look on his face, Lily could see he realised that things were not going to work between the two women.

"Ah, Dolores, don't you have some other buisness to attend to?" He asked nervously, fiddling with his lime green bowler hat.

Umbridge looked slightly embarrassed, probably at being caught in the act by the Minister of Magic. "Um…yes…I'll get going now…I'm…um…" She mumbled as she took her leave.

"Bridge?" Lily asked quietly when Umbridge passed her.

Umbridge glared at her.

Once Umbridge vacated his chair, Fudge reclaimed it. While Umbridge had looked out of place in the Minister's rich office, it was made for Fudge.

Fudge flipped open the folder. He extracted the foremost document. "I think you might want to see this, Mrs. Potter." He told Lily sadly, handing her a certificate. She accepted it curiously. When she looked at it she realised that it wasn't just any certificate, it was her death certificate.

She read it, her fingers trembling.

**Certificate of Death**

_Lily Rose Evans Potter__ 18-6-1960 to 31-10-1981__ Cause of Death: Murder (Avada Kedavra) _

Lily's whole body shook. In her hands, she held proof. She was dead.

Dead. Like so many people had told her. Petunia, Nathian Lythdan and more recently Dolores Umbridge. Dead. She was dead. It was one thing for someone to tell you, it was another to be holding a slip of parchment confirming the fact. _No, Lily, don't start crying in the Minister of Magic's office. You might stain the carpet... Oops…too late. _

She started to cry. She tried to wipe the tears away, but more came to take their place. It was like a leaking tap. No matter how hard she closed her eyes, tears still came out. 

In the midst of it all, Harry put his arm around Lily's shoulders and whispered, "I believe you mum, even if no-one else does."

Lily ruffled Harry's black hair again. Harry groaned. "The next time you do that, I think I'll ruffle _your _hair!"

Lily subconsciously fingered her auburn curls.

Fudge leant over the table. "Are you alright, Mrs. Potter?" he asked consolingly.

"I-I'm fine." Lily stammered, wiping her eyes again with the sleeve of her robes.

"I believe you, if it makes you feel any better." Fudge told her.

Fudge dug under the desk, and resurfaced with some forms. "Sign this form, and I'll be able to overturn your death certificate." He told her, handing her a bottle of black ink and his own eagle feather quill. "And sign this, and you can regain custody of Harry."

Lily dipped the quill in the ink and arched an eyebrow as well as she could with red eyes. "It's not meant to be this easy, is it? Don't you have to check with the Head of the Office of Records?"

Fudge fidgeted for a bit then replied, "Actually, he would have to report to his superior…which happens to be me. Don't worry, Mrs. Potter, I'll take care of it."

Lily read through the forms. They were pretty straightforward. She lifted her quill out of the ink and signed both of them.

"Thank-you, Mrs. Potter. I'll just put these away in here." He stuffed Lily's forms back into the folder. "Is there anything else you would like to discuss?"

"Actually, there is something. I read the _Daily Prophet _this morning…"

Fudge stopped Lily. "Say no more, Mrs. Potter," He told her as he removed his hat. "You must have been very upset when you heard the person who betrayed you, has escaped from Azkaban."

"Actually, Sirius Black wasn't my secret keeper." Lily admitted, sniffing loudly, and wiping her eyes again.

Fudge only looked surprised for a second, but then smoothly replied, "But he is still responsible for the death of thirteen people."

"But--"

"Mrs. Potter, this is another matter for another time. Do you have any other questions?"

"There's one more thing I'd like to ask…what else is in that folder?

Fudge bent down and flipped through it. "Ah…your birth certificate, your marriage certificate, your OWL and NEWT results…and an article… about the day you were attacked." Fudge said, choosing the wording of the last sentence carefully.

"That's alright then. I better get going now. Sorry for taking up so much of your time. You must have a very busy schedule." Lily stood up and Harry stood next to her.

"Good bye, Mr. Fudge." He said politely, pulling at the bottom of his blue jumper.

As they walked out of the room, Harry turned to Lily and asked her, "Who's Sirius Black?"

To this she answered, "I'll tell you another time."

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Harry tramped gloomily inside, leaving a trail of mud behind him. It had been raining all day, but Oliver Wood had insisted that they still train. How else would they get used to playing in the elements? Harry had always thought that elements meant fire, water, earth and air, but since it was very unlikely a gigantic fireball would engulf the Quidditch Pitch, he deduced that wasn't what Oliver was referring to. His hair was actually lying flat on his head thanks to all the water that had fallen on it.

A miraculous feat.

It was the last day of October and Harry had been trudging around the castle looking for his mother. He was headed to the library. She had been spending a lot of time there, looking up information on mirrors. To Harry, mirrors were mirrors. You looked at them when you wanted to brush your hair. Therefore he never had much use for one.

"Now, now, what do you think you're doing!" A voice called from behind Harry.

Harry whipped around. He was looking straight into the face of the Hogwarts' carekeeper, Argus Filch. He looked angry, and was holding a mop in his left hand.

Filch bared his rotten teeth at Harry. He pulled out a piece of parchment out of his pocket. "Name…" he said to himself, "Harry Potter. Crime…befouling the castle…"

"That's hardly a worthy excuse."

Harry had to turn around again, and with relief he saw his mother, wearing a light blue robe and an emerald green jumper which matched her eyes. She looked tired, and had bags under her eyes. Under her arms she held numerous essays and a book on sand.

Filch looked Lily up and down, and shuddered, his jowls quivering. "To you it might be just a little bit of mud, but to me it's an extra hour of scrubbing and cleaning!"

"I'll help you." Lily pulled out her holly wand, eight inches long with unicorn hair. She had gotten it at Olivander's when she was at Diagon Alley. "_Scrougify._" She spelled, and the mud was cleaned off the stone floor.

"THAT'S IT!" Filch yelled, his eyes bulging. "Magic in the halls! Detention tomorrow at eight o'clock. Meet me in the trophy room." He put the mop in his other hand, and left, probably to terrorize some more students.

"But…Mr. Filch?" Lily yelled to his retreating back. "I'm not a student. I'm a professor! _Stop laughing Harry!"_

Harry stopped laughing immediately.

Lily was pacing up and down the hallway, muttering to herself, "Can a staff member be fired for not going to a detention set by another teacher?"

"I wouldn't worry about it. He's just jealous because he's a squib." Harry stated, as he started walking down the hall.

Lily rubbed her eyes wearily and yawned. "I'm…just…so…wait a second! Mr. Filch is a squib!" She exclaimed, nearly tripping over Harry's feet.

"Yeah, Ron nearly got a detention with him yesterday. Filch told him to wait in his office, and he came across a Kwikspell letter."

Lily whistled lowly. "Excellent black mail material. It's payback time." She muttered to herself.

She realised Harry was looking at her strangely. "I never said anything." She claimed. "Shouldn't you be running along to the Halloween feast?"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you?" he asked. "Anyway, firstly I'm still wearing my quidditch robe. Secondly, Ron promised Nearly Headless Nick he'd go to his death-day party, and Hermione and I said we'll go along with him."

"So…" Lily started sarcastically, "You're not coming to _my _death-day party?"

Harry looked slightly confused, then suddenly realized what his mother was talking about.

"Oh…" he started.

"I can't believe I died eleven years ago, on this day. I just can't believe it. Some days I think it would have all been easier if I stayed dead. But then I realize that would mean I could never spend this time with you. I am so grateful for this time…but sometimes I can't help but wish for more. Wish that there were someway we could make the past eleven years all go away…make Voldemort go away…be able to spend time with you, Harry, as a child. As a _real _child. With your father and mother watching on as you learnt how to do so many new things. Watching the look of slight understanding and slight confusion on your face when we told you that not all people in the world are nice. Hearing you tell us what you did at your first day of school. Seeing you grow up as an sweet and intelligent child…cry when you break your arm falling out of the first tree you climbed…but I'll never get to do all that. My past was taken away from me. Your childhood was taken away from you. Your father's life was taken away from him. Our family was taken away from all three of us. I know nothing's perfect…but have you ever felt that everything is happening to you, and you only? Felt like a stranger in a world where everyone knows each other? Felt like there was no one who knew what you were going through? Felt like it was you against the world?"

"Yes. I have." Harry replied. Harry just let his mum kneel down hug him.

"I love you, Harry, my baby, no one's going to take me away from you." Lily swept some of hair out of her face. You better get going, if you're going to get to Nicholas's death-day party on time."

"Where are you going to go?" Harry asked.

Lily tugged on her hair, pulling it out of its messy ponytail. "I'm going to my room to read this book on mirror manufacturing."

"That's a long shot."

"I guess it is. I better get going. Bye, Harry."

"Love you, mum."

"I love you too."

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Lily was walking back to the library, so she could return the book on sand. It had been very unhelpful. Below her she could here the students of the castle moving back to their dormitories. She reached the second floor, which housed the library, but saw there was a crowd of people surrounding a wall.

She walked over as quickly as she could, her feet making sloshing sounds. In the center of the commotion, she could see Ron, Harry, Hermione, Filch and Dumbledore. That could not be good. There was a non-moving cat hanging from one of the torches. There was water flooding the ground of the entire floor.

In the front of the crowd she saw Draco Malfoy. "The chamber of secrets has been opened? Enemies of the heir: beware? You'll be next, Mudbloods."

Lily wondered where Malfoy was reading this. Then she looked up on the wall. In chilling, red, feet-high letters, were the first two sentences Malfoy had said.

Chamber of secrets? Enemies of the heir? The chamber of secrets was nothing but a Hogwarts myth! Enemies of the heir…Slytherin's heir…Voldemort.

"_Enemies of the Heir, beware!" _

"You'll be next, Mudbloods!"

Lily couldn't help but feel scared. First a cat…then next time a student, probably.

And then maybe her. Could she die? Why should she be so scared?

She'd already died once, hadn't she?

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So what do you think? I hope the talk with Umbridge clarified some things in the earlier chapters of the story…so if you think that policeman was a little dodgy, you now know the reason. Reviews welcome! Any constructive criticism is also welcome, so if you spot any mistakes or things that just don't sound right, don't hesitate to tell me.

And of course, flames belong in a campfire.

'Til next time,

Thoughts and Pondering.


	18. The Rogue Bludger

  
**Wish Upon A Falling Star **

A/N: Thanks to those who reviewed! Only fourteen more sleeps to HBP!

**Chapter Fourteen: The Rogue Bludger **

Harry and Ron ran down the staircase, pushing through the other people who were sure to be late for class. The second class of the day was to start any minute, and they had just started descending the staircase. They had gone back to Gryffindor tower after Defense Against The Dark Arts, because Ron thought he left his History of Magic essay on his bed. He hadn't. After a few minutes, frantically turning the boy's dorm upside down in his search, he found it in his copy of _Voyages with A Vampire. _

They were going to be late. Ron suggested they slide down the banister, but Harry didn't think that was such a great idea. So they ran down the stone steps, three at a time. The bell went as they just cam to the fourth floor. They ran at full speed towards the History of Magic classroom. They ran into the classroom, and breathed out a sigh of relief when they realised that Professor Potter was not there yet.

They took the two seats in the front Hermione had saved for them. She didn't really need to go to all the trouble. No one liked to sit in the front. Professor Potter came in seconds later.

"Sorry I'm late," she told the class, "I got held up." She placed her inkpot on her desk. "Can you please hand in your assignments? Just place them in a _neat _pile on my desk."

Harry picked up his, Ron and Hermione's essays. Ron had still been scribbling away quickly on his parchment, and looked slightly annoyed when Harry took it away from under his nose. "I'm an inch short!" he whispered loudly.

"Ron, I doubt the teachers measure them."

Ron's ears turned pink. Harry took them up and placed them on his mother's desk. She smiled at him and stood up as he went back to his desk. "Now our segment on Goblin Wars ends. Until the end of the year we will be learning about the history of Hogwarts. I borrowed the library's copies of _Hogwarts: A History_, because I understand the book was not on your book list. Please take one book each, and pass them around the room in a clockwise direction."

Lily handed the pile of old looking books to Ron. He took the top one and passed it to Hermione. Hermione took her book, smiling. "We're finally learning something interesting," she whispered to Harry, as she passed the book pile to him. He nodded his assent as he turned to pass the books to Parvati, who was sitting behind him.

In a few minutes, every one in the class had a book. "What do you want to learn about this lesson? Mind you, it has to be about the history of Hogwarts." Lily asked the class, as she sat back behind her desk. She picked up a banana that had been placed on her desk, and inspected it closely before setting it down again.

Hermione raised her hand, but for once she was not the only one. Behind her, Dean Thomas had his hand up too.

"Mr. Thomas?" Professor Potter asked.

"The Chamber of Secrets," he said, and by the looks on everyone's faces, they wanted to learn about it too. Hermione lowered her hand disappointedly.

"It's only a legend…" Professor Potter started, but trailed off, because it looked like she was unsure if it was a legend herself. The school had been buzzing with rumours of the Chamber of Secrets ever since Halloween. How ever odd a school Hogwarts may be, secret chambers weren't opened and cats didn't turn up nearly dead every day.

Hermione raised her hand again. Professor Potter nodded. "But don't the roots of all legends lie in history?" she asked.

"Yes…I guess that is true. Turn to page 77 in your textbooks." There was the sound of people flipping through pages. "Who would like to read?" she asked the class.

Harry raised his hand. His mum nodded at him. He leaned in closer to the book, and started to read.

Chapter IX: Myths and Legends The Chamber of Secrets 

_As you all know, Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago, by four of the greatest wizards of the age, Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff and Salazar Slytherin. _

_History tells us that Salazar Slytherin had a disagreement with the other three about what kind of people to take into Hogwarts. Slytherin thought that only those from all-Wizarding families should be allowed in, while the others thought anyone with magical talent had the right to be educated at Hogwarts.  
These differences soon led to Slytherin leaving the school. Legend says that Slytherin built a secret chamber within the school. Inside that chamber, is a monster that will purge all those that Slytherin thought were unworthy to study magic. The monster is one that is said to be able to be controlled by Slytherin's one true heir. _

"Thank-you, Mr. Potter," Professor Potter said, sweeping her dark red hair behind her shoulders. Harry looked up. The class were looking at Professor Potter. "Cla--" she was interrupted because of the sounding of the bell. After it finished, she added, "Classes are ending half an hour early today, because a new duelling club is starting, and some of the teachers wanted to do an duelling exhibition in the Great Hall. It is compulsory to attend. Before you all leave in excitement, could you please return the books to the front of the room?" she asked. She smiled at the class, straightened her light blue robes, collected the essays and exited the classroom. The students followed suit. Harry, Ron and Hermione were the last to leave.

"So that who Salazar Slytherin was." Ron said as they walked down a staircase. "Some twisted old loony who thought muggle-borns were bad…I always thought he was evil, you know, because of the Slytherins, but I didn't know he was the one who started all that 'pure-blood is best' stuff!"

"So do you like History of Magic now, Ron?" Hermione enquired, as she fiddled with her tie.

"To be truthful," Ron stated, talking more to Harry than Hermione, "Your mum's better than Binns any day!"

Harry smiled. "Anyone's better than Binns. He was so old he was meant to be history, not teaching it."

Ron and Hermione laughed as they went down the marble Grand Staircase. They turned into the Great Hall. The four house tables had been banished to the walls, and instead, there was a long platform in the middle of the hall. In the middle, Harry saw the one person that he didn't appreciate seeing run a duelling club. Lockhart. If this club was like any of his lessons…or his robes, which were a pale pink. Harry thought they looked nice…on a girl at any rate.

"Gather round, gather round," he shouted to the crowd. He flashed them all a smile, showing them his white, perfect teeth. It made the girls sigh and the boys feel sick. What kind of man wore pink, anyway?

"Welcome to the first Dueling Club meeting!" he announced. "Today, Professors Snape and Potter have kindly agreed to demonstrate a duel for us. So I welcome them up to the stage!"

Professor Potter and Snape walked up to the stage. Snape was glaring at Lockhart lividly. If looks could kill…they wouldn't have to deal with Lockhart anymore.

His mum and Snape stood on oppisite sides of the stage. They both took their wands out.

"On the count of three…" Lockhart started. "One…two…three…"

"EXPELLIARMUS!" Snape shouted, as he swung his wand over his shoulder.

"Protego!" his mum shouted, casting a shield around herself, deflecting Snape's spell to somewhere harmless.

"Serpensortia!" Snape shouted. A thin, black, snake popped out of the end of his wand. The snake hissed. He looked at Snape curiously. _What did Snape hope to gain with a snake? _He thought. He backed away slightly, as the snake came near him. All it did was come nearer, and lunged at his leg.

Up on the stage, Lily saw Snape's snake attack Harry. She was distracted, and made a move to attack the snake before it attacked Harry. Snape took advantage of this momentary lack of concentration and yelled, "EXPELLIARMUS" once more.

Lily couldn't defend herself in time. Her wand went flying out of her hand and she was thrown off her feet. There was a loud 'crack' as Lily landed on top of her left arm. She paled and pushed her body off her arm. It looked alright…it wasn't twisted to any grotesque angle, but it just bloody hurt. She heard spitting and sputtering. Standing up gingerly, trying to move her arm as little as possible, she saw Harry hissing at the snake…talking _Parseltongue. _Where had he learnt such a talent? The snake backed off Harry and started to head towards a Hufflepuff second year Lily recognized as Justin Finch-Fletchley.

Harry hissed at the snake again. It suddenly lunged and backed off. Lily pointed her wand at it and muttered, "Evanesco." The snake disappeared. She clutched at her broken arm.

"What do you think you're playing at, Potter?" Justin Finch-Fletchley shouted at Harry before stalking off with some of his Hufflepuff friends. Everyone took this as a sign to leave. Lily moved through the dispersing crowd until she reached Harry.

"You're a _parselmouth?_" she whispered to Harry as they set off, out of the Great Hall.

"A what?" Harry asked blankly.

"A parselmouth! It means you can speak to snakes."

"I-I was talking another language? And I didn't even know it?" he asked, shocked.

They had turned into a deserted corridor. Lily knelt down and put her right hand on Harry's shoulder. "Harry, just promise me you'll be careful."

"Why? What's going to happen?"

"Harry," Lily looked into his eyes which were wide and confused. "Just promise me, alright?"

"I promise." Harry said sincerely.

"Thank-you, Harry."

Lily stood up and hugged Harry, turned around, and walked off in the direction of the Hospital Wing, clutching her arm. Harry heard footsteps coming in his direction. He spun around and saw Ron and Hermione.

"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed. "You're a _parselmouth!_" She looked shocked, her eyes were wide.

"I know," Harry said gloomily.

"Then why didn't you tell us?" Ron asked. Both Ron and Hermione looked horrible, like someone had died.

"Because I only just found out myself."

"People are going to think you're the heir of Slytherin now." Ron added.

"What? Why?"

"Salazar Slytherin was a parselmouth, that's why the symbol of Slytherin is a snake!" Hermione said quickly in a hushed voice.

"People are going to think you're his great, great, great, grandson or something." Ron stated.

"Why does it matter? Only Mrs. Norris has been attacked so far!"

Hermione shook her head. "Last week a cat, next week a student. Then maybe a ghost. You just can't know, Harry. I wonder…you know that voice you heard on Halloween--"

"What, are you going to say I'm going crazy, am I?" Harry exclaimed angrily.

"No, Harry, I'm not. All I'm trying to tell you is to be careful!"

"You and everyone else. I'm _not _the heir of Slytherin, am I?" Harry said uncertainly.

"He lived over a thousand years ago. You may find that hard to prove." Hermione stated.

"C'mon. Let's go back to the tower, maybe finish that Transfiguration homework." Ron said, trying to break up their conversation.

Harry and Hermione nodded in agreement, and together climbed the staircase.

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It was mid November, and Hogwarts was normal. Well as normal as Hogwarts could be. It was warm for winter, and the majority of students were outside enjoying the last few minutes of reasonably good weather before winter kicked in.

However, Harry, Ron and Hermione weren't outside, taking advantage of the sun's overtime hours. Ever since learning about the Chamber of Secrets, and Salazar Slytherin, they had been looking for a way to interrogate Malfoy, because Hermione was determined to find out more about the Chamber.

Hermione brushed some of her bushy, brown hair, behind her ears, and showed Ron and Harry a piece of parchment, with Professor Lockhart's loopy signature on it, granting her permission to the restricted section. "He didn't even check what book I wanted!" she told them.

"Are you sure he didn't think you were asking for an autograph?" Ron asked, smiling slightly.

Hermione blushed, her face turning slightly pink. "Of course not. I told him that I wanted to get a book to help clarify something in _Voyages with a Vampire._" Hermione walked off to Madam Pince to show her the signature. Madam Pince looked at it closely under the light, as if determined to find it was a fake. She eventually handed it back to Hermione. Hermione walked to the Restricted Section and looked at the collection of books. There were so many books in here! She walked up the aisle until the title of the book caught her eye. _Moste Ponte Potions. Aha! There it was! _She pulled the heavy volume off its shelf.

She headed back to the table and opened the book. It was immediately obvious to them why the book was in the Restricted Section. There were some potions with effects too frightening to think about, and the pictures were just as gruesome. Hermione ignored these, however, and flipped through the pages until she found it. _The Polyjuice Potion._

She quickly read through the list of required ingredients. "This is the hardest potion I've ever seen!" she gasped.

Ron read over her shoulder. "Shredded boomslang skin? That's not in the student's stores. Where are we going to get some of these ingredients?"

Harry had walked over to both of them and read over Hermione's other shoulder. "Snape's private stores," he stated as he sat down in the library chair oppisite Hermione.

"We're going to steal from Snape?" Ron asked, as he sat down in the seat next to Hermione.

"Don't think of it as _steal, _think of it as permanent borrowing," Hermione mumbled into the book as she read the instructions.

"Hermione! You're encouraging us to break the rules!" Ron exclaimed.

"What do you think is worse, Ron, stealing a couple of potions ingredients or Malfoy attacking half the Muggleborns in the school?" Hermione asked, brushing her hair out of her face.

Ron ignored the question. "How long d'you think this potion will take to make?"

"Hmm…" Hermione started, running her finger down the page "These lacewings have to be stewed for twenty-one days…and the fluxweed needs to be picked at the full moon…about a month."

"What does this potion do exactly?" Harry asked at the same time Ron exclaimed, "A month!"

"The Polyjuice potion!" Hermione exclaimed. "Snape mentioned it in class three weeks ago. It can change the drinkers appearance!"

"So all we have to do is drink this magic potion…and then BAM, we're a Slytherin?" Harry asked.

"We need a little bit of who we're changing into, of course," Hermione added, pointing to the said ingredient.

"That sounds like cannibalism." Ron stated.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "It doesn't have to be flesh, Ron, it could be hair."

"Oh," he said in realisation. "But no toenails!"

"But where are we going to prepare this potion? In the boys dorm?" Harry asked skeptically, eyeing the page.

Hermione closed her eyes in thought for a second then opened them happily. "I've thought of the perfect place. Moaning Myrtle's bathroom," she told them.

"Moaning Myrtle? Wasn't she that ghost girl we saw at Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party? The one with lots of mean, derogatory, nicknames?" Harry asked.

"Yes. She haunts a bathroom on the second floor, right near the wall on Halloween."

"So when do you suggest we start?"

"We should start on Sunday, since tomorrow is Harry's Quidditch match." Hermione picked up the heavy potions book and walked off to Gryffindor tower.

"You know, it would be so much easier if you just knocked Malfoy off his broom tomorrow," Ron said loudly to Harry. They walked out of the library. Madam Pince was glaring at them for being noisy.

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Harry woke up early the next morning. It was a cloudy day, the sky was gray and the clouds looked like they were bursting with water to pour on unsuspecting people's heads. Harry stood up and got dressed in his scarlet Quidditch robes and made his way down stairs. At the Gryffindor table sat the rest of the team, there was no-one else up this early. They all had breakfast on their plates, crispy bacon and scrambled eggs, but none of them seemed to be eating their food, apart from Wood.

At eleven o'clock, the school headed out for the first Quidditch match of the season.

Harry went to the changing room with the rest of the team, even though he was already dressed, so he could hear Wood's pre-match pep talk.

"Alright," Oliver started, pacing up and down in front of the rest of the team. "The Slytherins may all have new brooms, but we have better _people _on our brooms. They're going to regret letting Malfoy on their team!" In an undertone he whispered to Harry, "You have to prove to him there's more to Quidditch than having a rich daddy. You have to get the snitch today, Harry, or _die _trying."

"So no pressure there, Harry!" Fred said, having overheard. He winked to Harry.

Harry nodded. He really didn't need Wood to tell him this. He felt the same way too. The team went outside to the Quidditch pitch, where nearly the whole school had come to watch. He saw his mum sitting in the teacher's stands next to Snape and his heart swelled. She waved to him. She had managed to obtain a Gryffindor scarf from somewhere, and she was wearing it around her neck. Teachers didn't usually show favour to one particular house unless they were the Head of one, but everyone knew Lily Potter was a Gryffindor. Snape, however, was glaring at him. He didn't let that get him down. Snape always glared at him.

"Wood, Flint, shake hands." Madam Hooch, a stern looking woman with hawk like eyes told them. They did so, squeezing each other's hands so tightly Harry thought they were going to break.

"On my whistle…three…two…one!" Madam Hooch blew into her whistle.

Fifteen brooms flew up into the air. A mix of scarlet, green and gray. Harry saw Malfoy rise on his Nimbus 2001. "Feeling alright, Scarhead?" Malfoy taunted Harry.

"Just fine, actually," Harry replied.

Malfoy narrowed his eyes, and flew off in search of the snitch. Harry rose up in the air, looking for a view of the small, golden, ball. It had started raining softly, and raindrops fell on his glasses, fogging them up. Harry dodged as a Bludger came his way. George Weasley came flying in his direction, holding his bat high up in the air, hitting the Bludger hard in the direction of Malfoy.

"Alright there, Harry?" he yelled, his freckles gleaming in the sun that had broken in between the clouds. "That's done it."

Harry nodded, and ducked again. The Bludger had come back! George followed it and hit it towards Marcus Flint. "Wonder why it came back?" George pondered. He didn't have much time, because in a matter of seconds it had returned, sending Harry into a spin to avoid it. "Someone's…tampered…with…this…Bludger!" he exclaimed, as he went to hit it off again.

"How could they, though? The Quidditch equipment's been in Madam's Hooch's office since practice!" Harry wiped his rain-streaked glasses, and ducked again. Through the rain, he saw his mum. She was mouthing something at him, waving her arms above her head. Harry faintly heard the word, '…careful!' The bludger came back, but he couldn't dodge in time. George tried to hit it away, but it was too late. The iron-cast ball hitHarry on the front of his head.

The last thing he heard before he lost consciousness was his mother screaming "NO, HARRY!"

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A/N: Think about it…he could have been hit on the temple and died instantaneously. But the boy-who-lived _can't _die without beating the evil, bad, wizard first! Anyway, review responses on my bio. Please review, or if you have any constructive criticism either…hopefully be able to update soon, my parents keep trying to make me spend more time outside. They say I spend too much time indoors.

'Til next time,

Thoughts And Pondering.


	19. The Hospital Wing

A/N: I've just realised I labelled the last chapter as "Chapter Fourteen: The Rogue Bludger. " It's actually chapter 18, I'll edit tomorrow. Anyway, review responses be up tomorrow.

**Wish Upon A Falling Star _by Thoughts and Pondering._**

**Chapter Nineteen: The Hospital Wing**

Lily sat in the teacher's stands. It was a slightly chilly day and Lily wrapped her cloak even tighter around herself. She took a seat beside Snape, who was wearing Slytherin colours (as he, after all, was Head of Slytherin house.) She hadn't watched much Quidditch before. To her, sport was a rather frivolous waste of time…people looking for silly little balls on a _broomstick_, of all things. A waste of energy which could be used doing something more constructive.

She watched as the players kicked off the ground, the Slytherin players looking rather menacing as they did so. She watched the game for a few minutes, relaxing back into the bench as she saw the Slytherin team score seven goals. The Gryffindors were putting up a fight, but the teams were equally talented and the Slytherin's superior brooms were giving them the boost they needed.

She looked upward, putting a hand in front of her eyes to block out the early winter sunlight. A scarlet blur, which she deduced was Harry, swerved around a partically dangerous Bludger above. She watched as one of the Weasley twins beat it away, then watched in confusion as it came back. Bludgers didn't come back. That much she did know.

"Duck…" Lily whispered. Harry glanced in her direction, staying stationary for a moment too long. She saw the Bludger hit Harry in the forehead. In this split second she felt her heart leap into her mouth. "NO! HARRY!" she screamed, feeling as though she was about to jump out of the teacher's stands. She stood up so quickly she nearly toppled the bench. Snape stood up next to her, stretching his arm out, preventing Lily from jumping down to her doom.

Snape muttered something under his breath that Lily did not hear with all the squeals and gasps in the stands. He pointed his wand at Harry and his descent slowed. Lily ran down the steps and onto the field. Over by the goal posts, Wood, the Quidditch captain signaled for time-out.

Lily ran over to the spot where Harry landed. Snape's spell had made him float down slowly. His Nimbus 2000 floated away, but she did not run to catch it. She looked up and immediately ducked. The Bludger came in again, having rebounded when it had hit Harry's head. She shakily drew her wand. "Reducto," she muttered, and the dangerous Bludger exploded. What had caused that Bludger to attack Harry? How _dare _anyone try and hurt her son?

She had known ever since the day Ron told her about Harry playing Quidditch that it was a bad idea to let him on a broom. Hadn't she asked them what would happen if Harry took a Bludger to the head during a Quidditch game? Of course, she hadn't thought of it as a very likely possibility. But if even half the student's rumors were true, spending time in the Hospital Wing wasn't anything different.

"Don't worry now, Harry, I'll fix you up."

Lily looked up. The beaming face of Gilderoy Lockhart looked down on her. He smiled the smile which had won him the _Most Charming Smile _award five times, smoothed some of his curly golden hair and pointed his wand at Harry's forehead and started saying, "_Frans Emen—" _before Lily stopped him, having drawn her own wand.

"I suggest you stop," she said, her wand pointing shakily at him.

Lockhart backed away slightly, wide eyed at his colleague's irritation. "My dear lady," he said weakly, "I am merely fixing his head. I am trying to do you a favor."

"You were mispronouncing it. It's _Frons, _not _Frans. _I'd rather not watch my son's brains fall through his nostrils, thanks. We don't even know if he's skull is cracked. He could just have a mild concussion.

"He fell a long distance!"

"And is unconscious due to the blow to his head, not the fall. Either leave me alone or make yourself useful."

Lockhart nodded weakly, then waved his wand and conjured a stretcher. At least he was able to do something right.

An hour later, Lily was holding Harry's hand in the Hospital Wing. The match had to go on, in accordance to Quidditch rules, with no substitutes for injuries. From the groans over on the pitch, Gryffindor was losing. Badly.

Madam Pomfrey had reassured her that he was going to be all right. She told her it was lucky he was hit on the forehead and not on the temple, as a hard blow to the temple could cause instantaneous death. She had heard her telling a passer-by that "Mr. Potter is in here again." It didn't sound like the first times was for a batch of Pepper-up potion either. She barely knew anything about him. She could count the facts on one hand.

She knew he was the Boy-Who-Lived. She snorted aloud as she thought of this. You would need to be deaf, blind and living under a rock not to know that, it seemed. She looked at him. He was lying down peacefully. Lily squeezed his hand and smiled. She stood up and pulled the blanket to his chin. She moved her plastic chair over to the window. The Quidditch game had just ended, and Slytherin had caught the Snitch, which was unsurprising, since Gryffindor was playing without a Seeker.

She turned back to Harry. She barely knew a thing about him. Everything she knew was what everyone else knew too. And there was the case of the Bludger…why had it tried to attack Harry? Did Bludgers occasionally come to the conclusion they were bored and decide to off a random person whom was unfortunate to get in the way? James would know. He would also know what to do. He wouldn't be walking around in circles trying to figure out what was happening.

He would be doing something…but right now, he wasn't doing anything. Lily felt the back of her eyes prickle with tears.

She stared out the window and into the night sky. She saw something move among the stars. Was a bird? Was it a plane? Was it Superm— no, it was a falling star. Did falling stars land? "I wish I understood…" she whispered. "…knew why this is happening to me…"

She watched the star fall out of sight. She looked at the sky, and upon seeing all the stars felt oddly insignificant. "To the world I am only one person…" she said aloud. She turned around to look at Harry, who was breathing quietly. "But to one person I am the world. Feeling better about herself, she fell asleep, her head resting against the cool window glass.

_Flashback: _

_The alarms went off, ringing loudly…louder than anything Lily had ever heard in her whole life…not even the smoke alarm the night her mum died. She ran up the stairs, two at a time. She was going to die…she was going to die…Harry was in her arms, not understanding why his mummy looked so scared. There was a fireplace in the bedroom…maybe she could escape. She reached the bedroom, and put Harry in his crib, tugged the blankets up to his chin. "Goodnight, Harry," she whispered, as she saw green lights coming from downstairs and what she thought was a body hitting the floor. _

_She shivered…"James…" she whispered. He was gone. Gone. She felt dizzy…what she would give to be able to just…turn back time…but there was no time turner lying innocently on the chest of drawer. _

_The door blasted open and Lily stood rooted to the spot, in front of Harry's crib. Her eyes traveled to the door. _

"_Why, hello, Mrs. Potter…" Voldemort hissed. His blood red eyes were focused on Harry's crib. Rain had started to splatter the windows, a steady beat of water hitting glass. Lily tried to say some witty retort but her tongue was frozen in place, and she found she couldn't speak. _

_Voldemort drew his wand and pointed it directly at Lily's heart. "Well? Speak! Your husband at least had the common decency to act brave…I know you're back early from your 'trip'," he said mockingly. Lily nodded numbly. How could he have known about that? Remus's mission…and the holiday cut short by the choice to go into hiding…and they also had to leave because the person in the next room was eaten by a Lethifold. Which just proved that there didn't have to be a war to have thousands of young, innocent people die per day…_

"_I'm not surprised…you're pretty good…for a Mudblood. Pity you couldn't save your worthless husband's life…oh, yes, he did put up a good fight, but the Dark Order will always prevail!" _

_She looked at the tip of the wand pointed at her chest, and the fear flowing through her body was overtaken by something else. Rage. How could he just come flouncing in, _murder _her husband and dream about hurting an innocent, beautiful, child? She felt something fall onto her cheeks, and she was crying, angry, but crying. She forget about magic, she forget that she was just a twenty-one year old woman who was about to face her death at the hand of the darkest wizard of all time. She curled her hand up into a fist and swung it and Voldemort's face. "Shut up, you bastard!" she yelled. "Don't you dare talk about James that way! He is worth ten of you!" He stepped aside easily before her hand made contact, plunging her fist into the mirror behind. She gasped, her hand was bloodied, but she did not feel any pain at all. Most likely one of the shards of glass had cut a nerve or something. _

"_Was…" Voldemort whispered the corner of his mouth turning up. "One chance. Stand aside, you silly girl." _

She shook her head slowly from side to side. Even if she could move, she wouldn't. Not her son…not her son…"Please…have mercy…have mercy…"she pleaded.

_Voldemort's eyes flickered lazily to the dark wooden grandfather clock behind him, and the other side of his mouth rose, yet it still didn't look like a smile. Just two smirks. "Time's up," he whispered, and yet she caught every word. Voldemort's eyes gleamed cruelly as she heard him say the two words she had been dreading. "Avada Kedavra!" he shouted, and a pale green beam was emitted from his wand. Lily felt the beam hit her…she was falling and falling and falling… then there was nothing._

_And that's what scared her the most._

_End Flashback._

Lily woke up, her face drenched in cold sweat. Another dream…yet it wasn't really a dream, that had happened. She stole a look down at her hand. It was a normal hand. Something Umbridge had mentioned to her floated unbidden into her head. _"Lily Potter's body is still in its coffin."_ So was this her body, or was there another body that looked exactly the same that she was inhabiting, and her soul had floated back into it after she died? What had happened after she died, anyway? One minute she was floating, falling, and the next…she was standing in a reconstructed Godric's Hollow. How did Umbridge come across that information? She hadn't checked, surely. She didn't seem like a grave robber.

Harry was kneeling on his bed; the bandages still around his head. "Come back, Dobby!" he shouted, his left hand curled in a fist shape, and his right one clutching at his head.

"Dobby?" Lily asked in alarm, "was he here?"

"He said he sent the Bludger after me," he said vaguely. "Why are you crying?"

"_He _sent the bludger after you? You could have been killed!"

"He said bad things were going to happen at Hogwarts," Harry said, as he searched for his glasses on his bedside cabinet.

"Harry, bad things are always happening at Hogwarts. What about last year?" she asked as she sat on the end of the bed.She wiped at some of the tears that were still forming near her eyes.

Harry sat back down on the clean white bed sheets. "The Philosopher's Stone?" he said questioningly.

"Is that what it was?"

"You didn't know? I thought Dumbledore or someone would have told you."

"If half the rumors are true…"

"D'you know what the Philosopher's Stone is?" Harry asked his mother, as he huddled up underneath his blankets.

"Isn't it a stone which can grant the user immortal life and can turn any substance into gold?" she leant backwards a little bit. She had heard of the Stone during her work as an Unspeakable.

Harry wiped at his bandages. "Yeah, anyway, Dumbledore was hiding this stone at Hogwarts--"

"— At Hogwarts?" Lily interrupted.

"It had a series of trials guarding it…"

"And let me guess. These 'trials', meant to keep a grown wizard out, couldn't keep out three first-years?"

"Dumbledore said it was because we worked as a team…" Harry trailed off, as he realised grown adults could work as a team too.

"Dumbledore says a lot of things. 'Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!'" she imitated, a sarcastic tone in her voice.

"But there was the Mirror, the Mirror of Erised…" he continued, in a tone of voice not dissimilar to an adventurer telling someone about an adventure that had not gone to plan.

Lily's ears perked up. She turned to Harry, some of her dark red hair hitting her in the face in the process. "The Mirror? What about the Mir—"

The door burst open, and Dumbledore and McGonagall ran in, holding what looked like a dead body between them. Lily did a double take, and realized it was Colin Creevey. And he didn't seem to be dead, just petrified.

Dumbledore's eyes reached Lily. "Call Madam Pomfrey," he issued. Lily looked behind her, Harry looked like he was in a very deep sleep, his glasses were even slightly askew, and Lily knew he was faking. That was the least of her concerns, however.

She knocked on Madam Pomfrey's bedroom door. She had already awoken due to the noise the Professors had generated. She came out of the room, pulling on a purple knitted cardigan over her nightdress.

"What's wrong?" she asked, as she ran to the bed McGonagall and Dumbledore had set the small, mousy-haired first-year on. She saw the body and froze. "Merlin's beard!" she exclaimed, edging closer. She looked at Dumbledore, her eyes wide and her cardigan unbuttoned, "What happened, Albus?"

"I was going down to the kitchens to get a cup of hot cocoa, and I found him at the bottom of the stairs." Dumbledore looked unusually grave. The twinkle in his usually joyous blue eyes had disappeared. Even his purple night cap made him look solemn.

"He had a bunch of grapes in his hand," McGonagall said. "We think he was trying to visit Potter. And I opened the back of his camera," McGonagall showed them the boy's camera, which she was holding in her hand, "and it's all _burnt!_" she opened the back, and showed it to them. There was no film in there.

Lily looked in confusion at the faces of the Headmaster, McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey. They all looked at her as if they expected her to say something. Suddenly self conscious of the tear strains on her face, she asked, "What does this mean, Professor?"

Dumbledore looked her in the eyes. She had never seem him look so old. "The Chamber of Secrets has indeed been opened again."

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So what do you think? Notice how Harry was conveniently interrupted when Harry was about to tell her about what Dumbledore did with the mirror? I've also decided on a sequel name, and it will be called The (insert story spoiler here) Wishes. I can't tell you the middle word, because that would ruin the end. Any guesses?

From now onwards, I'm going to tell you a little bit about the next chapter. Anyway…

Chapter Twenty: Merry Christmas: In which Lily and Harry have a talk about prophecies, James and life in general. Lily, Dumbledore, McGonagall and Lockhart have a conversation about the Chamber.

See you next time and don't forget to review!

Thoughts and Pondering.


	20. Merry Christmas

**Wish Upon A Falling Star: **_by Thoughts and Pondering_

**Disclaimer: **Haven't done one in a while so here goes...I don't own Harry Potter. I'm just borrowing the characters and putting them in entirely different pelirious situations.

**Chapter Twenty: Merry Christmas**

"The Chamber...the Chamber of Secrets?" Lily asked, shocked. "That's a Hogwarts myth! It _can't _exist!" she exclaimed.

Dumbledore sighed; he looked very old and tired, in his purple nightcap. Lily felt that she had acted childishly the last time she had spoken to Dumbledore. He was the greatest wizard of the age, after all.

"I'll speak to you and Minerva in my office. The password is Lemon Drop. Wait for me there. I will awaken Gilderoy. I feel like he will want to be made aware of this." Dumbledore walked out quickly of the Hospital Wing.

Lily looked back to where Harry lay, pretending to be asleep. She nodded at McGonagall. The stern looking dark-haired woman nodded back and they too, left. They did not exchange any words on the way to Dumbledore's office. That was the way she liked it. She didn't feel like saying anything. She wanted to be left to her thoughts. Like if she was twenty-two or thirty-three. Like if she was dead or alive. Like if she was going to be alive or dead by the end of the year. _You'll be next, Mudbloods! _

Colin Creevy was a Muggle-born. She was a Muggle-born. Salazar Slytherin was a Parselmouth. Harry was a Parselmouth. Salazar Slytherin didn't like Muggle-borns. Harry was a half-blood...she was so lost in her thoughts that she walked straight instead of turning onto the staircase. However, McGonagall was paying attention to where she was going, and Lily walked right into her.

"Sorry, Pr--Minerva!" she gasped. She clutched at her side, she had winded herself.

"It's alright." They continued their walk down the staircase. The school was very quiet, for once no one was out of bed out of hours, which was lucky, with some hidden monster on the loose. Hogwarts had always had its share of monsters, but this...this was outrageous. Attacking a cat...a student. The dark castle with flickering shadows on the wall cast by the floating candles looked like something out of a horror movie. She could die...or even worse...Harry could die...Colin wasn't dead...but he had a camera...what on earth would the camera have to do with it, anyway? Harry was going to have to spend the next few days in the Hospital Wing...

"Lemon Drop," she heard McGonagall say next to her. She looked at her surroundings. They were already at the big stone Gargoyle that guarded the entrance to Dumbledore's office. The Gargoyle shifted aside when McGonagall uttered the password. It revealed the narrow winding staircase to Dumbledore's office. McGonagall took the lead and Lily followed. Aftertwenty-one steps (she had counted) they reached the Headmaster's office. McGonagall sat in one of the comfortable armchairs facing Dumbledore's chair, so Lily took the deep scarlet one next to it.

They said nothing to each other. The only sounds were coming from the whirrs of the numeroussilver instruments sitting on shelves around the walls of Dumbeldore's circular office. Lily folded her arms across her chest. Now was the wait. She suspected Dumbledore was only asking Lockhart to be polite. She thought that Lockhart wouldn't recognize a werewolf if he was trapped with on in a phone booth. She had read his book, _Wandering with Werewolves,_ and it was the biggest load of dragon dung she had ever seen in her life.

_"All werewolves are lactose intolerant, no matter the time of month." _

That was the funniest sentence in the whole book, according to her. Gilderoy Lockhart had never met Remus Lupin (well, if he had he didn't know about his lycanthropy). Remus had won Hogwarts' unofficial ice-cream eating competition, but she, Lily, had come runner-up.

"'Morning, Albus. Will you please explain?" McGonagall exclaimed. She had stood up, and looked more confused then angry. The nearly seventy-year-old woman seemed to have a lot of energy. But of course, to a witch, seventy was only middle age.

"Gilderoy and I will try and come up with an explanation." There was no twinkle in the wizard's blue eyes. There was only lethargy. He sat in the chair, and looked around. "Sorry, Gilderoy," he said when he realised that Lockhart hadn't a chair. He drew his wand and non-verbally conjured a comfortable chintz armchair out of thin (or was it thick, the tension in the room certainly was high) air.

"Thank-you, Albus." Lockhart nodded gratefully and sat down on the dark blue chair.

Dumbledore took his chair behind his own desk. He stroked Fawkes' feathers. The red and gold phoenix trilled out a few happy notes. He was sitting on the edge of Dumbledore's desk, having flown down from his stand. Dumbledore smiled at his pet. His face went sober as he faced McGonagall, Lockhart and Lily. He drummed his long, aged fingers on the table. "The legend of the Chamber of Secrets...it is difficult to know where to begin..." Dumbledore started, then looked at Lily. "Would you like to tell us the legend of the Chamber? You've told to a few of your classes, haven't you?" Dumbledore asked scrutinisingly.

Lily nodded, and remembered the day last week she had told Harry's second year class about the Chamber.

_Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago, by four of the greatest wizards of the age, Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff and Salazar Slytherin. _

_History tells us that Salazar Slytherin had a disagreement with the other three about what kind of people to take into Hogwarts. Slytherin thought that only those from all-Wizarding families should be allowed in, while the others thought anyone with magical talent had the right to be educated at Hogwarts.__  
__These differences soon led to Slytherin leaving the school. Legend says that Slytherin built a secret chamber within the school. Inside that chamber, is a monster that will purge all those that Slytherin thought were unworthy to study magic. The monster is one that is said to be able to be controlled by Slytherin's one true heir._

She recited it off by heart. She had told it so many times over the last week, she thought that she was going to remember ituntil her dying day.

Which was eleven years prior.

"Thank-you, Lily," Dumbledore said, looking at her over his half-moon glasses. He had continued stroking Fawkes. "As I told you a few moments ago, the Chamber of Secrets has been opened before. You might remember, Minerva."

McGonagall nodded, she looked oddly saddened, her squarish glasses were threatening to fall off her face. "Myrtle Williams was one of my best friends. She was a year younger than me. We had a falling out a month before she was discovered in that... bathroom. She had worked herself up...after we had fought she went every looking sad...then two weeks after that, she had gotten news that her parents had beenkilled in the war...she used to go into bathrooms and cry...I still didn't go after her...we didn't make up. I didn't know what to say. My parents were wizards, I hadn't known anyone whose parents had been killed inthe Mugglewar before. Everyone else who had lost their reletives had lost them to Grindelwald.Olive Hornby was another student in Gryffindor. She had never liked Myrtle and I. She started her nickname of 'Moaning' Myrtle...I remember she also used to tease her about her glasses...And then...then...two weeks after that...she just...died. She was found dead on the bathroom floor. People had been attacked before...but they were just Petrified...which isn't an official name, mind you, it's just a name we students coined to describe what those students looked like. It had been going on for nine months...nearly half of the Muggle-borns in the school were in comas...and we were all scared...so horribly scared...and then, at the end of the school year the weekly attacks stopped. No-one was attacked after that. We had heard the legend of Salazar's Chamber...that's what we called it...Salazar's Chamber...at least that what the Heir called it. He used to send notes to the Headmaster, the letters were cut out from editions of the _Daily Prophet._Official history books such as Hogwarts, A History, call it the Chamber of Secrets for the unknown creature dwelling inside it...all this happened fifty years ago..." Minerva trailed off, her knuckles were white, she was gripping the arm of the chair with all the strength she possessed. Unfallen tears swam in her eyes.

Lily let out a breath...to lose a friend like that...to not have the chance to say good-bye...for a friend to die...and all that was remembered was a month of despair.

Dumbledore nodded. "Miss Williams was the first and only fatility of the Chamber...for now. We don't know what might happen in the future...but I can be at leastninety twopercent sure in saying that Salazar Slytherin's creation is behind this."

"What about theeight percent, Dumbledore?" Lockhart asked. "These poor students could be in mortal peril with every step they take within this castle. It could be something else..." he trailed of dramatically.

"Like a Zimbillian Bullfrog," Lily muttered under her breath.

"Yes, they have particularly poisonous venom..."

"Oh, yes, they do, especially because they don't even exist." Lily felt like banging her head against Dumbledore's desk. Why on earth had he hired an idiot like Lockhart for a teacher was beyond her.

Lockhart smiled sleepilyand replied jerkily, "I was only humouring you, dear." His gold blonde hair was in curlers, it was one in the morning and he had been asleep when Dumbledore had awoken him.

"So what are going to do, Albus?" McGonagall asked. She also looked like she was going to nod off. It had been a long day.

"We could imput new security measures." Lily offered. "It's better to try and prevent another attack then to wait for another one too happen. Then we might catch the person whose controlling the basilisk...Salazar's heir." Lily had a new interest in the subject now. She wanted to find this person...and she didn't know...maybe ask for an answer...understand what was going on, have something to work on...

"We could walk the students to classes and push up curfew for all years to six p.m sharp," McGonagall suggested.

"That would be a good idea, Minerva. I will present the idea to the staff at the staff meeting on Wednesday." Dumbledore nodded seriously over his half-moon glasses."Is there anything more to discuss?"

Lockhart,McGonagall and Lily shook their heads.

"Then we should all trot off to bed and try to get some sleep on what has certainly been a very eventful night!"

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It was month later and Christmas Eve. Lily dozed in front of the warmth of the fire. Harry sat next to her. He had a skewer and was roasting some marshmallows. Four of his pink and whitemarshmallows had fallen off, two of them had burnt and one time Harry had flicked the skewer to fast from the fire that he accidently pushed it into the fire, causing the skewer to burst into flames. He had thrown the skewer in panic, and it had landed onLily's head.She had been reading at the time, but slowly came aware of heat on top of her hair. She had doused the flames with her wand and she was now resting peacefully again while Harry cleaned up the marshmallow bag. He had learnt a very important lesson, and that was to never roast marshmallows.

It simply didn't work.

The two of them had a Christams tree of their own, in the corner of Lily's sleeping quarters. It had been decorated in the way of the rest of Hogwarts Christmas trees, but theirs was special. Harry had unearthed a small pastastar he had made in his first year of primary school in the bottom of his trunk. How it had got there, he didn't know, but Lily had put it at the top of the Christmas tree.

They slept peacefully. Harry's snores had started to fill the room. Lily had curled upinto a ball on her black recliner with her head facing the floor. Somewhere in the room a clock chimed midnight. It was Christmas.

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A/N: I know I said that I would put Lily and Harry's talk in this chapter, but I didn't have the time. If I don't post this now, it would probably be Friday until I could start writing that chapter. Anyway, I've kept the name of the chapter. I've noticed an odd thing about the reviews per chapter. They seem to be going down by two. Is it because I'm taking ages to update? Anyway, I hope I get more than two reviews for this chapter. Try something new! Break the trend of reviews recieved going down by two!

Anyway, til next time,

Thoughts and Pondering.


	21. The Talk

**Wish Upon A Falling Star: **_By Thoughts and Pondering_

Wow, here's another long chapter. And I also now spell checked it. My bad. I looked over it just now, and it look liked a minefield. So yes, this is the edited chapter. Nothings changed apart from the numerous spelling mistakes, and the next chapter description. I added to it.

**Chapter Twenty One: The Talk**

Lily awoke to the quite crackling of the fireplace and Harry's louder snores. The fire hadn't gone out all night. She marvelled at that fact. Maybe someone had come in and attended to it. She went to Harry who was sleeping on the couch and shook him gently.

"Wake up, Harry," she murmured. "It's Christmas morning."

"Dwangitup," Harry mumbled sleepily.

Lily shrugged. Harry could sleep in if he wanted to. She moved to the Christmas tree, by passing a pile of dilapidated marshmallows on the way. Moving around the frosted Christmas tree, she arrived at her presents. There was a large pile, which nearly rivalled Harry's. This surprised her. She didn't think that she would get that many presents this year. There was a large, cube present at the top, wrapped shabbily and hurriedly with paper that was the same colour and texture of a paper bag. Lily smiled. She knew who this was from.

She unwrapped it slowly and found out she was right. Under the paper was a box of ice-cream. Only one person gave her ice-cream every Christmas, and that person was Remus Lupin. As she pried off the lid of the plastic green ice-cream container, she unfortunately realised that the same Remus Lupin had forgotten to apply a freezing charm.

The liquid-ish chocolate mess at the bottom of the container did not look very appetising. Cautiously she dipped a finger into the melted mess and brought it up to her mouth and gingerly licked it. She grimaced. It was warm, and in this state, applying a freezing charm would be useless. Well, it would turn the liquid back into ice-cream again, but without anywhere to keep it, it would melt eventually. Freezing charms only kept for ten hours. Could she eat the whole box in ten hours? Re-applying the charm was a no-no, it was very unhygienic. She searched around for a card and found a little tag saying, 'To Lily. From Remus. Sorry, not much time."

She pushed it back under the tree, making a mental note to tend to it later. Lily ripped the paper off the next present without noticing its colour or texture. It was a book, entitled "_The Mysteries of Life: The Cycle." _Inside the paper was a slip of parchment. On it in big, loopy letters were the words, "_I think you might find this an intriguing and illuminating read." _

Lily smiled gratefully at the note, and set the book on the bedside table. You could always trust Dumbledore to come through with something important to the situation at hand. Not that she didn't appreciate the ice-cream; however it would have been a better gift if it had been in its intended frozen state.

Going through a few more presents, she unearthed two bags of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans from Cho Chang, an eagle feather quill from Professor Sprout and a couple of rock cakes from Hagrid, (She had tea with him in his hut two weeks ago). Lily knew from hearsay that these rock cakes certainly lived up to their name.

The next present, however, was different. This present wasn't wrapped; this present came in the shape of an envelope. A _paper_ envelope. There was something other than paper inside. Flipping the envelope over, she read the name written on the back in black biro pen.

_P. Dursley._

_4 Privet Drive_

_Little Whinging,_

_Surrey_

Could it be from Petunia? Did she know any other P. Dursleys? She ripped the top off the envelope, and pulled out the object inside. It was a necklace. It was her necklace. The necklace that she had tied to the pigeon's leg with the note. She was so happy to have it back. Her mother had given it to her...before she died. All thanks to the faulty electricity in the television. Seeing her in the hospital was the worst...and learning there was nothing they could do...that she was going to die unless a miracle saved her...no miracles ever came...she wasn't sure if she was going to smile or cry, but her tear ducts seemed to have made up their mind. She cried. Grasping the necklace she fumbled with the clasp and finally managed to do it, (albeit a little too tightly). But she wasn't sad. She was happy. This necklace meant everything to her. She didn't know how someone could put everything that was special about them into one little pendant...but her mother had succeeded.

"S'yalright?" Harry said sleepily, sitting upright on the couch as he tried (and failed) to place his legs through the arms of his jumper.

"I'm fine. I got it back. She gave it back to me," she said blissfully. Whether she had actually heard Harry's question was a mystery to him. She could just be yelling out how happy she was.

Harry took a second glance at his mother, clutching the emerald green pendant in her hands, with a face so euphoric she looked like she was trying to do a jig on the spot, and shrugged his shoulders. "Mum..."he started but trailed off. Lily had not heard him. "Mum," he said a little bit louder. Lily still showed no sign of having heard him." MUM!" he finally yelled, waving his arms and jumping down on the spot. This caused him to trip over a couple of stray marshmallows littering the floor from the night before where Harry had moodily thrown them into the fire after having given up roasting them. He fell straight into Lily.

After being pushed backwards, she stood back up straight again, and looked at him, still with the same happy, slightly crazy, look in her twinkling emerald green eyes. Having finally noticed that Harry was awake, she looked at him. After picking a marshmallow out of his hair, Lily finally asked, "What is it, Harry?" She did not sound exasperated. She still sounded blissfully happy.

"I need to go to my dorm. My presents will be there. You need to escort me. New school rules, remember?" Lily nodded slightly absent mindedly. Picking up the ice-cream container, she nodded to Harry, and made her way to the door. Just as they were about to exit, the fire in the fireplace flared.

Slightly alarmed, but still not quite there, Lily more skipped, than ran, to the fireplace. She cheerfully dumped the ice-cream's content on the fire, hoping to put it out. But someone walked through the fireplace, and that poor, unfortunate person had ice-cream dumped on his or her head.

"I probably deserve that," said a slightly exasperated person whose head was coated with brown ice-cream.

"Remus?" Lily asked, slightly confused. "Is that you?"

"Yes it's me," he said, smiling despite the fact he just had two litres of ice cream dumped on his head. "I came to give you this." He held out a long thin object that Lily recognised even though it had been covered in ice-cream. It was a wand. Her wand. Her first wand. The one that she had thought had been lost when she had supposedly died.

Taking it gingerly out of Remus's hands, she asked, "Where did you find it?" She pocketed it and smiled. Yet another thing to add to her euphoric mood.

Remus sat in an armchair, cautiously moving to the side furthest away from the barking mad table. "It somehow came into the Ministry's possession. I was there, talking with Norman Lovegood. He does the Registrar of Werewolves for the Ministry...as well as running the _Quibbler._ I swear he's not quite right in the head...it might be something with his wife dying two years back, but word has it he's always been like that...anyway, I was updating my file, confirming things like, yes I still am alive, and no, I haven't changed my name. Anyway, he made a comment to me on your unsuspected...revival...for lack of a better word. Seems like the _Quibbler's_ been doing a field day on you, running elaborate or just completely crazy theories about you. Anyway, he said that someone wrote in and said the Ministry had come across your wand and held it in the Department of Mysteries...anyway, a couple of appointments later, I found out that this certain rumour was true. I had a meeting with the Minister for Magic of all people and he asked me if I was a friend of yours, and I said I was, and he asked me if I was going to see you over the Christmas period, and I said I would, and so he told me to bring this back to you. All this happened yesterday, so I forgot to freeze the ice-cream. I'll replace it. Sorry," he said it all in a single breath of rushed air.

Lily just stood still for a second and hugged her friend. Actions spoke louder than words. Then she took a step back and asked, "What do you mean the Quibbler's been running a field day on me. I'm not that amazing enough to warrant the whole Wizarding's worlds attention, am I?" She sat down on the couch, shoving a blanket onto the floor.

"Ah, Lily. Ever the modest one, aren't you." He shifted uneasily in the scarlet armchair, and sighed slightly. "Yes of course, you aren't very special; you've just had some very special things to you."

It was only now, that her state of uninterrupted happiness had finally been interrupted that she noticed that Remus looked tired. Very tired. Lily leant back into the couch. Shrinking into it as much as she could, she whispered, "I don't feel very special...what one person finds a blessing, another finds a curse."

Remus closed his eyes for a second, and then asked her, "Have you ever thought about what you're going to do in the future?" he asked, his eyes glazing over and he was probably thinking back to a time where he had asked himself the same question.

Lily crossed her arms across her chest and said shortly. "Live. Survive. Be safe."

"And how are you going to go about that."

"However I can."

"Okay, so maybe looking to the future isn't the best thing to do. Maybe we should look at the past." Remus folded his hands across his lap, and looked like he had wanted to have this chat with Lily for ages. Harry had given up trying to exit the door, which Lily had locked the night before and he retreated to the couch to sit next to his mother, sitting with better posture than his mum was displaying.

"Why?"

"Because you're a responsible adult and should have some plans for your life, especially for Harry's sake!"

Lily faintly remembered that Remus wasn't as agreeable as he usually was when he hadn't had a lot of sleep. She kept this in mind.

"Well, what do you think I should be doing with my life?" she asked, exasperated.

Remus folded his arms defensively across his chest. Bad sign. "It's not my life."

"Exactly."

He stepped forward and moved on the couch, closer to Lily. "Do you really think its safe, to bottle up your feelings like this?"

Annoyed at the accusation, Lily replied a little too hotly. "I'm not bottling anything up!" she said sharply.

"Maybe I should leave, for a little while, until you calm down. Harry can keep you company. He walked over to the door and twisted the wooden knob. The door remained closed. "Lily, can you please unlock the door?"

Drawing her wand, her wand, her real wand, and pointing it to the door, she muttered an incomprehensible spell. There was the sound of a lock unlocking. "Thank-you. I have to meet up with Dumbledore at some stage today, and it might as well be now, while I'm waiting for you to mature." He let himself out the door.

Harry turned to look at his mother, and was not at all surprised to see that she was crying. "Mum," he asked, putting his arm around her shoulders, "are you alright?"

Not at all embarrassed about admitting her emotions to Harry, she pretty much sobbed into his shoulder. Hugging Harry tightly, she said, "God, I miss him so much...he would know what was happening...he was so smarter than I."

"You're smart too, Mum!" Harry exclaimed.

"Me!" Lily said vehemently. "What do I know? I know how to read, and that's about it. I can try to search for answers for books, but how can I? I don't even know what the question is. All I want to do is try and protect you Harry," she said, shaking her slightly, but loosening her grip since Harry was showing difficulty in breathing and she wouldn't be doing a very good job at protecting him if she suffocated him. "All I know is that you'll have to meet him someday, the man who caused all this damage...the man who ruined our lives. The one who ruined so many lives. V-Voldemort. And knowing you'll probably be the one to stop him. Do you remember the prophecy I told you at the start of the year.

"The one that said I pretty much have to kill him, or to him to kill me?" Harry asked curiously, "Is it real?"

Lily nodded, her arms still refusing to let go of Harry. "You don't have to try and fulfil the prophecy, but what I learnt from my rather short time studying them...the prophecy will find you. And since Voldemort is intent on fulfilling the prophecy...well it would be easier to just put it this way. You have the choice to fulfil the prophecy if you want to, and you can try and run away from something that's destined to be. Because no matter how far you run, you can't hide." Still shaking Harry's shoulder's slightly, she continued, "But I just want you to be safe...be safe..." she ruffled Harry's hair, making it even messier, a feat once thought to be impossible."You're so much like your father...at least that what I think...but when you were a baby...James...I mean your father...he said he saw me shining out of your eyes...you look so much like him...you know..."

Harry finished the unfinished sentence for her. "But I've got my mother's eyes."

"Yes. That. Eyes are windows to the soul, after all."

On a whim, Harry asked a question he had wanted to ask for a while, but was scared of what his mother's reaction would be. But for some odd reason, he thought that this was the time. "What was my dad like?" he asked curiously, tugging slightly at his mother's sleeve.

Lily looked at him in surprise, her eyes growing wide. "What do you mean, what was James like? Oh...right...how can I possibly explain..." her voice quavered slightly as she went on, "It's so hard to sum someone up in words...I don't know...let me just tell you this...he loved you more than anything else in the world...more than life it's self. I'm not sure if I'm the right person to be telling you this..."

Harry hugged his mum again and said, "It's better than Snape's jibes in class."

Lily grimaced. "Yes, I've heard of those. He only saw one side of the man I knew. Just put in this way. Take my rather undescriptive answer, and take Snape's taunts. Put them all into a one person, and you can only start to imagine...I'll just say one more thing. He was as brilliant and unique as everyone other human being in the universe, and he will live on in the hearts of everyone who knew him...because even if people do die, memories don't. You'll remember and cherish them forever, for the rest of your life and beyond..."

Harry didn't voice his first thought, which was if someone sustained massive head injury couldn't they forget everything, and just listened to her words.

"That's brilliant, Mum, you should have said that for his funeral. It was only slightly unfortunate that his funeral was held at the same time as yours..."

Lily smiled sadly. "Yes. Rather unfortunate." Ruffling Harry's hair again, she stood up, stretching her cramped limbs, she had been curled into a rather uncomfortable sleeping position last night.

There was a knock at the door and Lily pushed herself out of the beige coloured couch and called out, "Who is it?"

"Lily, have you matured yet?" was the response she was given.

Walking over to the wooden door, she flung it open. "Hello, Remus. Do you know all this talk about maturing is making me feel like a banana?"

Remus laughed, and strolled into the room, and it was only now that Lily realised that Remus's robes weren't as patched and shabby as they usually were. In fact, these robes were brand new. She squinted at Remus, making sure it just wasn't an illusion from the slightly warm winter sun streaming through the icicles on the window.

Remus was squinting at Lily in the same manner. "Have you been crying?" he asked. He looked concerned. Walking forward and putting his arm around her shoulders, he added, "I didn't mean to upset you..."

"No, I'm fine now. Harry and I were just talking about James."

Remus nodded as Lily spoke. When she finished speaking, he wiped some of his brown hair off his brow, and said, "James. Now there's a tricky subject." He took a step away from Lily, accidentally kicking the leg of the nearby roaring coffee table as he did so. The table lived up to its name, and Remus hastily stepped back to Lily again. "I went down here because I had a message from Dumbledore...what was it again..." he rubbed his chin."Oh, yes, I remember now. He wants you, and Professors McGonagall and Snape to look into the girls' bathroom on the second floor where the writing appeared nearby on Halloween night. Lockhart can't come; he's in the Hospital Wing. Dumbledore thinks he fell down three flights of consecutive stairs. Anyway, Dumbledore says there has been some suspicious activity surrounding it, especially since it's been out of order since the early 1950's. He suspects it's nothing, probably just some students brewing illicit potions or something, but he suggests for the three of you to check in on it before the feast tonight, which I am staying for."

Lily nodded absently. "Yes. There was something I was meaning to ask...Remus, are those new robes?"

Remus smiled slightly and nodded. "Yes. I finally found the motivation to look for a job again. I teach kindergarten students now, Muggles, since early November."

"Do you like teaching?" she asked.

"It's alright. The kids do get a little tiresome at times." Remus nodded, and said, "I really must be going. I promised I'd meet Mrs. Pettigrew for Christmas lunch."

Lily turned to look at Remus, and did a double take. "You. You are meeting Mrs. Pettigrew for lunch. I'm telling you, he worked for Voldemort." She didn't remember consciously doing so, but her hands curled into fists.

Remus shook his head. "I do this every year. She keeps telling me to eat more. I'm like an adopted son to her...you know...ever since...Peter...well...died..." Lily opened her mouth to speak, but Remus raised a hand, indicating that he was about to add on to his sentence. "Yes, I know you think that Peter's not dead, but Mrs. Pettigrew doesn't know that. I mean, if he was...I mean...is alive, wouldn't you want to chase after him, seek revenge?" He leant on the arm of the scarlet armchair.

"I think I learnt from Sirius's example. I feel like the only person I should be angry with is Voldemort. Everything ties back to him. I'm not going to try and find Peter Pettigrew...but if I ever see him again...so much the better for me, so much the worse for him."

"But if you find Peter, that is, if he's really alive, wouldn't that prove Sirius's innocence?" Remus looked a little confused and teary himself.

Lily looked at Remus, taking in the grey hairs, the wrinkled forehead and the new, not shabby robes and said, "What about the Muggles that died?" she had calmed down slightly, and her hands relaxed.

Remus seemed too uneasy to answer this question, and took a quick glance at his watch, and said, "Oh, is that the time? I really have to go to see Mrs. Pettigrew now. And you need to meet Severus and Minerva...and Harry can go on his own, there are teachers patrolling, like they do on weekends, since you know...there's no lessons..." Hugging Lily quickly and saying goodbye to Harry he walked back out the door.

Lily smiled, but then frowned and whispered to herself, echoing the words she had spoken before. "What about the Muggles that died?"

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Coming Soon: Chapter Twenty Two: The Big Black Dog, in which Lily finds out some more answers to the question she's not quite sure of, and Lily meets up with Trelawney, who tells her about the Unlucky Eleventh Theory.

Please review. It'll make my day. C'mon guys, we can make eight...aiming at 162 reviews by next week, I know you're there, so you can review! Anyway, thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed in the past, I really appreciate all of them, and especially any constructive criticism you guys might have for me. So thanks for reading! We are aprox. half-way through the story.

Bye,

Thoughts and Pondering.


	22. The Big Black Dog

**Wish Upon A Falling Star: By Thoughts and Pondering**

Guess who's finally got a computer. Me!

**Disclaimer: Just in case you've forgotten, I don't own Harry Potter. **

**Chapter Twenty Two: The Big Black Dog. **

"What about the Muggles that died?"

Harry shrugged his shoulders. He didn't know. It happened when he was fifteen months old. But Lily couldn't help but feel that the Muggles had been lied to, cheated out of the chance to know what really caused their loved ones deaths.

Draping herself with her cloak, she made her way to go downstairs to investigate then. Harry smiled, having finally gotten dressed.

Lily smiled back. "Well scurry off then." Harry nodded and ran out the door.

Making her way downstairs in a civilized manner, she walked briskly down the two staircases required to reach the girl's bathroom on the second floor. When she arrived there, both McGonagall and Snape were waiting, Snape looking in a foul mood, a scowl plastered across his features.

Then again, Snape always looked like he was trying to lay a very big egg. This wasn't much of a difference. Snape opened the door, as he was closest to it, and went in, his black robes billowing after him. So much for ladies first.

Lily had been in here before, in her school days. It was a bathroom in a detiorating condition. Some of the mirrors were cracked, some of the doors were not fitted with basic locks, some of the toilets were without seats, and some of the taps simply didn't work at all.

"See anything suspicious yet?" Snape asked, in a rather grumpy.

McGonagall did not look rather happy with Snape today as she tartly replied, "Yes. I see a male in a girl's bathroom."

Snape ignored this, and the ankle deep water as well as he made his way to the taps. Turning one of them, he remarked, "This one never works." He demonstrated this by twisting it anti-clockwise then clock-wise.

Lily looked closer at the rusting tap, and ran a finger over the side. Curiously enough, she found a small snake engraved on the side. "Look, there's a snake here!" she exclaimed.

McGonagall, who was searching a toilet cubicle, came out of it, pinching her nose in a delicate manner. "There's some sort of potion brewing in there."

Moving towards the tap Lily indicated, she tripped over a loose tile in the floor, losing her balance, she fell into Lily's outstretched arms, waiting to catch her former Transfiguration teacher. She did not brace herself hard enough, however, and was knocked backwards into the uncracked mirror above the sink, which shattered when Lily's right elbow dove into.

Lily was for a second mildly aware of pain, but it did not last. Thinking she had just grazed her hand, she took the hand covering her injury, looked down and immediately wished she hadn't because she nearly fainted. A piece of glass from the mirror lay deeply just below her wrist, dark red blood, so dark it was nearly brown, flowed from it slowly. It didn't hurt. It must have cut a nerve.

Feeling extremely queasy, she clutched the side of the sink for support, her hand leaving a bloody fingerprint stain on the side of the crumbling white repetacle.

McGonagall looked at Lily in alarm, moving quickly to the young woman's side. "Place it under running water," she ordered sternly, shifting her square glasses as if to look at Lily's bloodied wrist better.

Lily was feeling faint, and leant against the next sink and turned to tap shakily with her other hand. She put the wound under cold water, still leaning against the sink for support.

Snape moved to the tap with the snake marking, frowned, and started muttering something like, "The serpent. Salazar Slytherin's mark."

McGonagall, however, was not paying any attention to Snape's mutterings. She was watching Lily's cracked mirror with a thoughtful expression on her face. Looking from Lily's cut wrist to the shattered mirror, her lips drawn into a straight thin line, she kept whatever was troubling her to herself.

Snape came over, after having looked in the cubicle McGonagall had moments before. "There's an illegal Polyjuice Potion being brewed in there. It is up to the final stages of completion. As the Headmaster predicted, the illegal activity surrounding this bathroom has been naught but some troublesome students brewing illicit potions. How they managed to come across the recipe is a mystery to me...although by the quality of the potion, I would suspect it would be the work of a NEWT level student."

Lily nodded, though the information had gone through one ear and vacated through the other. Her face was as white as chalk, and looking through the gaps of her bloodied hand, she thought she was going to die from blood loss.

McGonagall opened her mouth, and closed it. Feeling that the moment was right, she asked, ""Mrs. Potter, how many times have you broken mirrors in the past?"

Lily was still looking at the blood flowing slowly from her wrist, but eventually replied, "I broke one when I was two…another when I was five, then eleven, sixteen, and one just before I died…"

"Have you heard the old wives tale if you break a mirror you receive seven years bad luck?" McGonagall asked, looking slightly curious.

Lily felt strangely like a guinea pig which had been transformed into a guinea fowl when she answered, "Of course I have."

"Diviners have been trying to prove that every time you break a mirror, the number increases by one."

Lily tried to comprehend this information. "But…once…when I was sixteen…my mum died ten days later, not ten years."

McGonagall pursed her lips and shook her head. "It is thought that it could be days, months or years."

"Why?" Lily asked, pushing all her weight onto the sink.

"It's a myth, Miss Evans. Even all myths and legends lay down their roots in facts. You, of allpeople, shouldknow that. But according to our esteemed Professor Trelawney, the bad luck can be broken by a wish upon a falling star."

Lily racked her brain, but couldn't remember wishing upon any falling stars at any point of her life. "Are you sure?" she asked, looking at the older woman as if she had the answers written on ink on her face.

"It is but an untested theory, Lily."

Snape looked at her as if he had just acknowledged Lily for the first time. "Evans, give me that." He grasped his wand from his pocket, and moved it, muttering unspoken words and making it dance complicated patterns above her hands. The wound closed slightly, the blood flow became less. "You should soon pay a visit to the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey will be able to do a better job. Foolish wand waving is not my forte."

McGonagall sighed through her nose. "Only you, Severus, would call it 'foolish wand waving.'

Snape ignored this however, since the door had just opened. A female's feet splashed on to the puddles covering the tiles.

"Paying a visit to the bathroom, Granger?"

Flinching as her robes swept the damp floor, Hermione Granger composed herself and swept some of her bushy brown hair behind her ears and said in a fast, quavery voice. "I-I really need to go to the toilet, so I rushed in here…"

Snape was looking at Hermione so intensely that Lily was half scared that he was going to bore a hole in her skull. "Don't lie to me, Granger."

Sounds of footsteps from the hall filled the room, sloshing as they reached the flooded part of the room. "Hermione, checked the potion?" Ron Weasley panted without looking up, his cloak dangling in a rather dangerous position around his neck as usual.

"So it's your potion, is it Weasley?" Snape asked, his greasy black hair framing his pale pallid face, "Pray tell me, do you usually routinely arrange to visit girl's bathrooms?"

Ron went green in the face, and looked down at his shoes, ignoring Snape's words. Hermione, however, had paled to a level that could rival Lily, and was shaking her head madly. "I-I'm sure this is just a misunderstanding!" she squeaked. "I haven't been brewing any potio-, oh, God, now I've done it."

Snape, who seemed to be enjoying this all too much for his own good, said, "Let's wait for Potter, shall we? The Dream Team dare not get separated?" he said mockingly.

Hermione paled and looked out one of the small high windows, letting in some more of the mild December sun.

Lily, with a horrible sinking feeling in her stomach that had nothing to do with the cut on her wrist, moved to the side, a little bit, so she could see the potion out of the corner of her eye. Definitely Polyjuice.

And true to Snape words, Harry came running in only moments later, clutching a book in his hands, but skidded to a halt when he saw Hermione and Ron standing in the doorway. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Potter, you amaze me with your abundant amount of ignorance." Snape was clearly stalling for the right moment. Lily felt her hand go clammy and sweaty.

"Obviously, your parents never taught you proper manners to use in common society. Oh yes, I forgot. You didn't have any parents to teach you."

Feeling like someone had put some red cellophane in front of her eyes, she took some gulping breaths of air in. She could not lose her temper in front of students. She could not lose her temper in front of students, especially not Harry. She could not show how much those words hurt. Feeling the back of her eyes prickling, she tried to maintain a constant pitch as she walked up to Snape, looked him right in one of those dark, tunnel like eyes, and said, "I would make sure that the subject of your conversation is not in the same room next time, Severus. But I won't make a childish retort to your juvenile insult. I'll do the adult thing and walk away."

She was a banana. She was maturing.

Walking a little more briskly then was necessary, she nudged pass the 'dream team' and into the corridor. Feeling woozy from the blood escaping from her wrist, she went to the marble staircase. She wanted to be outside right now. She wanted to breathe in the frigid winter air, she wanted to feel the cool sun on her face, she wanted…wanted…to catch a snowflake with her tongue. She didn't know why she didn't go to the Hospital Wing. Possibly she just didn't want to get poked and prodded by Madam Promfey like an invalid. She could do the charm herself…if only she hadn't sliced her wand arm.

"Professor, did you get my pres--, are you alright?" Cho Chang was passing by with a group of her friends. Brushing back some of her long silky black hair, she walked forward. "What happened to your wrist?"

None of Cho's friends made comments; they just shifted uneasily in their places.

Not wanting to feel like a cripple, she blew them away. "I'm fine. I've just had a bit of an injury, is all."

She made her way out of the big double doors at the front of the castle, breathing in the cool frigid air as she did so. The cold stung against her wrist, which was still oozing out droplets of blood. They fell onto the white snow, leaving small crimsons stains on it. Feeling dizzy, Lily slumped against the castle wall, her head in her knees. Her mind was spinning, she felt very faint. She had underestimated the cold outside.

Letting go, she let the tears fly. She hoped there was no-one nearby. She hated to cry in front of strangers. She liked to put on the happy, every-thing's-going-to-be-alright face, and live under the pretence that nothing ever went wrong. It was the perfect façade.

Feeling snow fall on hair, she moved to brush her hair. Something cool and wet licked her cheek, wiping away a strain a tear had left behind. Was it a tongue? A dogs' tongue? Looking curiously to her left, she saw a shaggy black dog, tongue out and panting heavily. Dog…why did she feel like she was missing something? Didn't James once say something about a dog? _"The deal with our nicknames? You know I'm a stag Animagus, that's why I'm Prongs, Padfoot, better known as Sirius, is a big, black dog with padded feet, and while Moony is not an Animagus, he gets his name from his little furry problem, you know, the werewolf one?" _

Could this dirty, flee-filled dog be Sirius Black? Gasping, she moved for her wand in her robes. But her head spun again, and she lost her balance, slumping back against the wall, hitting her head slightly as she did so. As her vision swum, she saw a Remus-like blur in the distance. Hoping that it was Remus was back from an uneventful Christmas lunch, she called out, "REMUS!" before her vision darkened completely, her face falling straight into the freshly fallen snow, sounds of footsteps running towards her lost against the pounding of blood in her ears.

_Flashback._

"_Girls! Stop that!" Her father shouted, wearing nothing but a fluffy white bathroom towel. _

"_I was in here first!" A sixteen year old Lily growled. _

"_My dear, _darling, _red flower, no amount of watering is going to erase that putrid aroma that constantly encompasses you." Wielding a beam of the broken towel rack, Petunia Evans walked out of the bathroom, hair dryer in one hand, hair brush in the other. She set the beam down on the floor. "I, on the other hand, have my important dinner with Vernon tonight…I think this is going to be it!" she squealed excitedly. _

"_What's it?" Lily asked curiously. "The night you confess your undying love to an obese hippopotamus?"_

_Petunia twirled a strand of pale blonde hair around her finger and rolled her eyes. "Grow up, freak." _

_Cheerfully, Lily picked up the stick. Listening, she heard what she thought were her father's footsteps preceding back to the kitchen. Raising the beam above her head, she readied to swing it. "Looks like this Petunia may need some pruning!" she yelled as she swung it. _

_Petunia dodged it, slipping into the bathtub as she did so. The wooden towel rack beam hit the mirror above the sink sharply, breaking into millions of pieces._

"_GIRLS! WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE?" _

Lily woke up, breathing heavily through her nose. She felt cold beads of sweat on her forehead, and wiped them with a clammy, bandaged hand. She flexed the fingers on the wrist of her injured arm. They tingled, like pins and needles. Opening her eyes hastily, she saw the rather dark Hospital Wing, lit by only one candle, flickering in its basket.

She moaned out loud, but she was alright for now. Someone must have brought her here. Turning over she fell asleep again.

"_Me do it better than you!" squealed a five-year old Petunia. Two-year old Lily lay on her stomach next to her older sister as she drew a messy line of lipstick all over her sister's face. She held up a small, glittery blue hand-held mirror so Lily could admire her work. She leant against the foot of the worn double bed. _

"_Gimme that." Lily said, reaching out for the mirror. Petunia stepped aside, holding it above her head, tauntingly out of Lily's grasp. Lily stood unsteadily to her feet. Stretching her short arms as far above her head as they could go, she still wasn't tall enough to reach the mirror. "MINE!" she yelled, stamping her feet up and down. _

_Petunia stood up higher, stumbling in her mother's stilettos that she was wearing. "C'mon, little red fwower, you'll have to do better than that!" _

_However Petunia thought Lily was going to react, it was not this. She tackled her sister to the ground, the mirror precautiously dangling out of Petunia's hands. They slipped, hitting Lily on the head. Lily fumbled to catch her prize. "I catched it!" she exclaimed happily, as she tripped over the hem on the velvety dress-up dress she was wearing, falling flat on her face, the mirror going flying, through the door to the tiled hallway area, and shattering into pieces. The noise scared her, causing her to shed big crocodile tears. "MUMMY!" she yelled. "P'nia broked it!" _

Lily woke up, panting. Was that a real memory? She had been told of the time she when she was a teen, but she had never remembered it so vividly.

"You're awake now. Good." Madam Pomfrey bustled over, carrying two pillows under her arm. She put them behind Lily's back, forcing her into an upright position. "You're wrist should be fully healed within a day. You should have come to me immediately, instead of dilly-dallying outside with Mr. Lupin and his dog." Holding out a bottle of jasmine-smelling potion, she poured it into a goblet conveniently placed on her beside table. She handed it to Lily, who sniffed it warily.

Madam Pomfrey sighed, pushing some loose strands of hair back into her hair net. "It's not that bad, you know."

Lily eyed it. The purple fragrant smelling liquid inside seemed to be frothing. "I'll take your word for it." She gulped it down, and fought the urge to spit it back up. Swallowing heavily, she forced the foul tasting substance down her throat.

When she drank it, she felt like someone had unlocked a door in her brain. She felt like she could hear the lock opening. "What do you mean, Mr. Lupin and his dog?"

"He was with a dog when he brought you up here." She was pointing her wand at a vase of flowers, lilies, she noticed, on her bedside table. The water rose in the vase.

"What sort of dog?" she asked.

"A big black one," she said vaguely.

"Can I go soon?" Lily asked. She needed to see Remus. She needed to find out the truth about this whole "big black dog" thing.

"In a minute. Drink this." She handed Lily another vial of the bubbly liquid. "I don't want you to faint on your way back. I gave Mr. Lupin a bed I your room. He seemed anxious to speak to you."

"If you don't feel well anytime over the next few weeks, do not hesitate in coming back, alright? Take that bandage off after four hours; the bleeding would have stopped by then."

Lily nodded, jumping out of the bed and noticed she was wearing the baggy pajamas that usually came with an overnight stay with the hospital wing. She didn't care if she ran through the castle at six in the morning in the middle of the school holidays wearing bedclothes. She had to see Remus, especially if he was alone with a though to be murderer.

Not stopping to even say good-bye to a startled Madam Pomfrey, she rushed up the staircase. Luckily none of her students were up this early, but she still wished she had the pretence of mind to put on a pair of slippers or something. Every time she took a step, the flagstones of the floor made her feel like she was dousing her feet in icy water.

Running and panting, she made her way down the hall to her quarters. Barging through the door, she saw Remus sitting on the couch with dark circles under his eyes, indicating he had not slept all night. He was twirling his wand idly between his fingers, and did not look up to face Lily until she had closed the door behind her.

Looking up at her, he did not beat around any bushes. "Lily, we have a problem."

Looking at the dog that was curled up in the corner under the roaring coffee table, she replied, "If that's who I think it is, yes Houston, we do."

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This chapter was meant to be longer, but it was actually meant to be part of the last chapter…but it's a good length anyway.

Next Chapter: Diaries and Detentions: In which Lily and Remus interrogate Sirius, Harry has a month's worth of detentions with Lockhart, Ron with Snape and Hermione with Lily, and Lily finds Ginny Weasley at the scene of the crime clutching a stolen diary…

We made my review ambition for the last chapter. (which was 152, not 162) Let's try for 161 in total. That's only 9 reviews! I have faith in you! Review responses up already.

Thanks for reading, and til next time,

Thoughts and Pondering.


	23. The Tale of Sirius Black

**Wish Upon A Falling Star.**

A/N: Sorry for not updating in three weeks! I'm trying to get my updating schedule for all three stories back on track. School holidays really threw it off course. I know you've been waiting for this.

**Chapter Twenty Three: The Tale of Sirius Black.  **

Remus looked at Lily, throwing her a questioning look. "What are we meant to do?" he asked her, looking to the dog, which had become slightly agitated and was thumping its front paws on the crimson rug it was laying on, and looked back to Lily.

Lily bit her bottom lip, turning it white. For a few minutes she just stared, and then shook her head. "We could force him to change," she suggested.

Remus raised an eyebrow. "And what happens if he does turn out to be a murderer? If Peter really was your Secret Keeper…" he trailed off, for there was no reason for him to finish the sentence.

The dog's ears went back and its tail stopped wagging merrily. It growled menacingly, and stood up, stretching his hind legs.

Lily gave a small shake of her head again. "He could have already transformed, and be beating us around the head with a heavy book by now." She eyed the bookcase in the corner of her room. "I know there's a lot of them in here."

"But we're armed, and he's not."

"And if he wanted to kill either of us he's had plenty of opportunity to do so, you were alone in here for about two hours…be reasonable Remus."

Remus tapped his foot on the floor. "Are you sure?" he asked.

Lily nodded confidently. "Very."

Remus pulled out his wand from the pocket of his new robes and muttered, "…then on the count of three…"

Lily raised her wand as well. Blue light shot out of their wands, combining into a single spell to strike the dog on the rug. The shaggy black-haired dog was knocked off balance, nearly hitting its head on the stone wall behind it. Yet it wasn't quite a dog anymore. The spell was doing its work, and the dog was quickly morphing into a human.

It was true. The dog was Sirius Black. Sirius Black was lying in front of a fireplace on a fourth floor room at Hogwarts.

Remus's eyes went wide, as if he couldn't believe what was right in front of him. "S-Sirius?" he stammered. He looked like he was going to sink into the floor. Or faint. Perhaps both of the above?

Lily laid a hand on his shoulder, which was more of a caution than anything. Her other hand had a tight grip on her wand, which she had trained at Sirius.

"Do you have an explanation?" Lily asked calmly. "I'm not going to do anything until I have an explanation."

She could feel Remus's shoulders heaving under her hand. That was not good. Remus Lupin was meant to be the calm one, the voice of reason. The day he became mad was the day... the day people escaped from Azkaban and came back from the dead.

Sirius slowly sat up and stared at the tip of Lily's wand. His eleven years in Azkaban did make him look a bit crazed. His matted, elbow-length black hair did not make him look rather welcoming when it was framing his very pale gaunt face.

He suddenly jumped up to his feet and let out a laugh like a mad dog. He had to lean against the mantelpiece to stop himself from doubling up.

Lily did not see what was so funny. Furthermore, she was not amused. Her expression did not change as she glared at Sirius.

Sirius sobered up after a few moments, and stood up straighter. "So what are you going to do when I do give you my 'explanation'? Sorry, Lily, but you were never good at acting angry."

Lily shook her head again, for the third time. "I'm not acting angry," she stated, confused.

"Then you are the calmest angriest person I have ever seen."

"But…I…oh well…_Do _you have an explanation?"

Sirius smiled ruefully and moved off the rug and to a seat by the roaring coffee table. "Oh yes…Fudge came around for his annual Azkaban, you know, making sure all us prisoners are nice and insane…" he laughed bitterly then continued, "Well, I have to say, he was quite disappointed in me. He came in my cell, flanked by two Aurors, and asks me how I'm going. I told him I was doing fine, although I was a little bored. I noticed he had a copy of the Evening Prophet. I asked him for it, told him I missed doing the crossword. He looked at me incredulously for a few seconds and stared at the paper to deem if I was worthy of it. Eventually he handed to me, and I asked for a quill. I was obviously pushing my luck there, so he left."

Lily nodded, but still did not lower her wand. "Keep going," she urged.

"Then I looked at the front page of the paper, and guess what I read?"

Lily smiled. "I was never good at guessing."

Sirius laughed his dog like laugh again. Running his hands through his tangled mess of unruly hair, he nodded his head. "You never were, Lily, you never were."

"I do believe the title was _Lily Potter, Alive." _ I was a little bit shocked, to be honest, but then my logical processes started working again and I asked my self if the Daily Prophet could be wrong. They aren't exactly known for creating accurate articles…"

"Well…" Remus interrupted, "there are getting slightly more factual…"

Lily gave him a withering look. "Let's stick to the point here, Remus."

"But then I decided I had to try and find you, Lily, just on the off chance that it was true, that you were really alive, because you were the only person that knew the truth. The truth about Peter. It took quite a while though, you never went outside much…only that time at the Quidditch match, and you were surrounded by too many people…"

Even though she was trying to keep calm, Lily could hear her voice hardening. "I'm afraid I don't know the whole truth about Peter."

Sirius did a double-take and stared at Lily for a few moments. "But surely you know…" Sirius said faintly, "…about the Secret Keepers, the whole switching ordeal…"

"But what happened when Peter attacked you? Who killed the Muggles…was it you or Peter?"

Sirius's eyes widened. "Of course I didn't kill them!" he exclaimed, jumping up from his chair. "What would I have to gain by killing Muggles?"

Lily stared at Sirius. "Peter was the Auror…"

An irritable smirk passed Sirius's features. "I never knew how he managed that. He was never really good at school. Especially not in theory work. Actually, now I think about it, he was rather good at all practical subjects apart from Transfiguration...the little rat…" he finished bitterly.

The last three words confused Lily. Was Sirius just talking about Peter's betrayal, or was he talking about something more...was it possible Peter could be an Animagus as well?

She voiced these thoughts aloud. "Was Peter an Animagus as well? Considering both you and James were Animagi…"

Remus nodded next to Lily. "Yes. Peter could turn into a rat…rather fitting; now you think about it. It still amazes me that he managed to pull it off. He wasn't good at Transfiguration…"

"Yet he still managed to succeed. Maybe you were underestimating him all along. After spending seven years in the shadow of three of people he considered friends…people who never truly appreciated him for who he was…maybe he decided it was time to show the world what he was capable of, time to make a difference. I think you created your own worst enemy."

Sirius looked at Lily suspiciously, as if he was planning to give her a piece of his mind and tell her she was all wrong, but he swallowed and replied, "Do you still think I caused those Muggles deaths now?"

"No, because now this all makes perfect sense."

"I'm glad you see it that way, Lily."

Remus stared at Sirius for a few moments and then cleared his throat and asked, "Does that mean we can clear your name now?"

Before Remus had a chance to reply, Lily interrupted him. "I've already tried to speak to Fudge about it, and he didn't want to talk about it. What do you propose I do? Grab Sirius, walk right into his office, and bang him on his desk and say, "This is Sirius Black. He is innocent. He might think I'm a little bit crazy."

"Little?" Remus mouthed, leaning against the open window, which had a frigid blast coming from it, the sky outside was strewn with stars.

Sirius laughed harshly again. "That man won't see what's right in front of his nose."

Lily wasn't listening very well to the Sirius. She was looking out the window Remus was half-blocking. How come every time she saw stars she thought of James? It wasn't right…she breathed in some of the cold winter air into her lungs and reflected on the happenings of the past few months. She shivered and moved away from the window, pulling her cloak around her.

"Do you think Peter's still alive?" Lily asked, making her way back to the fireplace Sirius was in front, sitting cross-legged at his feet. She didn't look at either of the men as she asked this question, but looked at one of the tassels of the rug, making small plaits in the red and gold string.

Remus looked at Sirius. Sirius squinted his eyes and replied, "No. I don't think so. I didn't get a very good look, but the street was blown to bits. If I had been an inch closer…actually if I had been an inch closer I might actually be a bit better off then I was for those eleven years…"

"Well everyone in the Wizarding World is convinced Peter Pettigrew is dead. Maybe he's dead, maybe he's not. We can't do much about it until we know for sure."

"If Peter died, it's what he deserved, nothing more, nothing else. You get back what you put out."

"Well seeing as you can't help me…I guess I'll get going…" Sirius said, as stood up straight.

Lily, who was rubbing her hands together frantically, trying to get some feeling back into her now numb fingertips, froze and nearly fell flat into the fire. "Where are you going?" she demanded to know.

"I'm going back to my hidey-hole," Sirius said. "I don't want to force my presence on you any longer than I have to."

"It's winter!" Lily exclaimed, rubbing her hands again. "You'll freeze!"

"I have a fur coat to keep me warm, Lily."

"Just for a little while then, have a shower or something. You look like you knocked on death's doorstep and ran."

"Thank-you for your frighteningly accurate description, Lily."

"You're welcome. Is that a yes?"

"Alright then. Maybe. Just for a few days. So where's this shower?"

Lily directed him to the shower, which was adjoining to her room on the left side of her sleeping quarters.

After hearing the taps turn on in the bathroom, and a couple of expletives usually associated with turning the water on too hot, Remus turned to Lily.

"You don't really think Peter's dead, do you?"

"It doesn't matter. It was all in the past. Whether Peter is dead or alive doesn't affect what's happening right now. He was part of our lives before. He's not now. It doesn't matter. Bridge under water…" Lily lifted herself off the rug, and stopped rubbing her hands. She staggered onto the couch and collapsed onto it.

"I do believe you mean water under bridge. And I think it matters a lot to you, Lily, not for you, but for Harry and James's sake. Am I even close to the truth?"

"I don't know," Lily replied truthfully. "I'm only certain of one thing right now, and that is I want to take a nice, long nap."

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There was initially more for this chapter. But there was going to be a time jump, and it was just too confusing. So this chapter's a lil' short, but there's only about…six or seven chapters left. I think. It shouldn't be more then eleven. Review responses will be up tomorrow…It's way past bedtime…

Til next time,

Thoughts and Pondering.


	24. Wish Upon A Falling Star

_Italics are dreams/flashbacks. _

**Wish Upon A Falling Star by Thoughts and Pondering,**

_Chapter 24: Wish Upon A Falling Star. _

"_You can really see the whole world from up here!" Lily laughed and flicked some of her hair behind her back. "Or enough of it, anyway." She exhaled loudly. It was a warm summer's night, and it didn't feel much cooler at midnight. She reached around James, who was perched on a chair beside her and swung the telescope her way. The stars were spread over above them, little shining pinpricks on a black background. There were no clouds. _

_James smiled. "We don't need to see the whole world," he said softly. "We just need to see the stars as well as the moon… and finish this astronomy essay we didn't finish earlier this year. Professor Sinatra said she wasn't going to extend it for us any longer." _

_Lily grinned widely. "Imagine _you_ telling _me_ to do homework. Thought the day would never come, eh?" _

"_We need to trace the moon patterns now…" he mumbled, twirling the telescope from Lily's grip and looking through it himself. "It's a quarter moon…I can't tell where it is, since I can't see it…" _

"_How do you know, then, if you can't see it?" _

"_D'you need to see something before you can know it?" James asked, stepping back from the telescope to wipe his glasses. They had accumulated a thick layer of fog somehow, and he irritably hunched down to wipe them with his sleeve. As an answer to Lily's inquiring gaze, he mumbled, "Sirius thought it would be…amusing…to put some sort of charm on my glasses. M'never going to leave them on my bedside table again." _

"_What are you going to do then?" _

"_Sleep wearing them." _

"_See better now?" Lily asked as James pressed an eye to the telescope again. "I still can't see the moon…wait is that a shooting star?" _

_Curious, Lily stood on her tippy-toes and craned her neck to see into the direction James was pointing. "I see it!" she exclaimed excitedly. She saw the shining object make its way majestically across the sky. "Maybe it's just a satellite or something," she said a little dubiously. _

"_A satty-what?" James questioned. "Never mind. It has to be a star. Look!" _

_The star was quickly making its descent, and was nearly about to escape Lily's view. _

"_Make a wish upon a falling star, Lily," James whispered in her ear. _

_Her mind suddenly felt devoid of any thought, and she just stared numbly at the stars. How many galaxies could be out there? Could there be another universe outside of the universe? _

"_No." She shook her head. "You saw it first. It wouldn't be right." _

"_All right then." James grimaced slightly, and he gazed at the stars, talking inaudibly under his breath. _

"_What did you ask?" Lily asked inquisitively. _

"_If I told you, it wouldn't come true." _

"_Like on a birthday cake?" Lily asked, remembering back to the last time she had had one. She had been six. She had never been terribly fond of cake. _

"_Yeah," James answered. "Like a cake." _

_Lily smiled again, and took another sweeping glance at the stars. "Hope your wish comes true," she whispered. _

_James just looked Lily straight in the eyes and simply said, "So do I." _

Thinking that her pillow felt extraordinarily hard, and rather like wood, Lily pushed herself out of her bed. Except that it wasn't her bed. She had fallen asleep at her desk, correcting…she looked at the pile of essays that were in danger of dropping off the table. She was meant to be correcting the fifth years' essay, about the founding of Hogwarts. It had been a popular topic lately, ever since the message on the wall, but since they had been no more attacks, and certainly no mysterious disappearances, all the hubbub was dying down again.

Shifting the pile of papers back to the middle of the desk, she put the half-empty pot of ink atop the parchment as a paperweight, and stood up, stretching her cramped arms above her head. Her arms ached, since she had been resting her head on them all night. Sighing, she pushed back her chair, which made a horrible scraping sound on the stone flagstones, and stepped backwards.

It was mid February, and all was well at Hogwarts. Since there had been no more word about the Chamber of Secrets, the extra security measures had been lifted. She had overheard some of the teachers say that they were sick of shepherding the 'little sheep' around.

Harry, Ron and Hermione had a month worth of detentions that had ended a couple of days ago.

The weather had gradually gotten better; it was now no longer so very cold, merely chilly. Even so, Lily wrapped her cloak around her shoulders tightly. She had a picnic basket underneath her desk, filled to the top with food, and of course it also included a picnic blanket. How one could have a picnic without something to sit on was beyond Lily's comprehension. You'd get dirty, sitting on the ground.

It had been a week since Lily had visited Sirius with her usual bundle of goods. Today these included of some various items of food, a clean sheet and a pillow case. If someone came across a seemingly stray dog with a half empty picnic basket and a couple of sheets, they would think (Lily hoped) that some people had not bothered to clean up after enjoying their food in a rather dank and smelly cave, and the dog was simply there to salvage the scraps.

She made her way quickly down the staircase, it was six-something in the morning, and the sun was just rising. Birds were singing, but she ignored them. She wasn't one to commune with nature. She didn't spend much time outside nowadays, at least not in the earlier hours of the morning. She clutched the basket harder as it threatened to drop out of her grasp. She had gotten the food she needed from the house-elves in the kitchen. House-elves were always an agreeable bunch. She guessed they were taught to be that way.

Walking briskly down the cobbled street, she swiftly made her way to the stile that would lead her to the cave. Remus had thought of the location. They had needed something secluded, yet it couldn't be impossible to get to. He had chosen here. Pushing a few tree branches that were hanging in front of her face, she entered the small opening to the shallow cave.

She gently set the basket down on the dusty cave floor. She saw Sirius walk cautiously in, still in his Animagus form of a big black shaggy dog badly in need of a haircut. He caught Lily's eyes and she winked. He transformed in the blink of an eye.

"Thanks Lily, I've been ravenous."

"I would have come earlier…" Lily started, but Sirius stopped her.

"It doesn't matter. It's here now. Rats," Sirius grimaced, "aren't the most delectable source of food."

Lily started to open her mouth again, closed it, and instead took out the red and white checkered picnic blanket and spread it out. She sat down cross legged on the blanket.

Sirius raised a grimy eyebrow. "You're making quite an outing out of this, aren't you?"

"Well, I decided you may want some company today."

"It's Valentine's day today," Sirius mentioned. "I've been taking copies of the Daily Prophet that have been thrown out around the village. That's how I've been keeping up to the date."

"Well, just so you don't get any misconceptions, there is absolutely nothing romantic about this setting." She took a whiff of the air. "It smells like _feet _in here."

Sirius crossed his arms across his chest and said in a mock dejected voice, "Well I'm sorry the air in here isn't aromatic enough for your highness…" As Lily sent him a glare, he replied, "Come on, Lily…you know I'm joking."

Lily smiled and opened the picnic basket, and took out a loaf of sliced bread and some turkey slices. This she passed to Sirius, who accepted them gratefully. He pushed a ham slice between to slices of bread and stuffed them into his mouth and began devouring quickly and messily.

"Don't forget to chew before you swallow," she said absently, as she searched down at the bottom of the basket bottle of Butterbeer.

"Ivont," he said incoherently, his mouth full of turkey. Swallowing loudly, he asked, "So how are things going at Hogwarts?"

"They've decided to lift the security measures because there's been no attacks, since the Creevey boy. The governors decided that there are better things for us teachers to be doing, instead of doing mundane things like preventing our students from being murdered."

Sirius started to say something, but halted to burp loudly. "Maybe that attack was just a freak of nature or something…"

"And maybe the security measures were actually preventing any attacks from being made. But there's nothing I can do about it, and I'll accept that, for now."

"And if anything weird goes on, you'll start doing something about it?"

"Well, yes…if I see anything suspicious. Hopefully there won't be anything odd going on. Maybe…hopefully…" She glanced at the watch on her wrist, and gasped. "If I don't get going now, I'm going to be late for class."

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Class on a Sunday?" he asked, slightly confused.

Lily stared at him. "It's not Sunday."

"Well, excuse me for living in a time-warp." Sirius smiled and delved into the picnic basket.

"Don't worry about it, I was thinking it was Sunday too when I woke up this morning." She hiccupped slightly, the result of gulping down much too much butterbeer at a time.

"Thanks again Lily!" Sirius said, his voice slightly hoarse.

"Don't mention it." Lily waved her good-byes, still clutching her butterbeer. She exited the dank, feet smelling cave and breathed in the fresh winter air outside. It felt _good. _She wondered why she didn't spend much time outside. She came to the conclusion that she was uncomfortable being around too many people at one time. She always had been.

She wondered what was going to happen today. Lockhart had said he was going to plan some 'surprises'. She couldn't help but feel a little bit queasy about what those might be. Anything involving Gilderoy Lockhart and a plan would be enough to make anyone feel a bit queasy. That man was a walking disaster without having a plan!

But when she walked into the Great Hall for the first time that morning, she instantly shielded her eyes as pick confetti, shaped like little love hearts, floated from the pale blue ceiling-sky above her. Lockhart was standing up, making some sort of announcement. He had some dwarves next to him, with golden wings and harps, making him look very much like Cupid.

"…they will be delivering cards to people all through the school day..."

Couldn't he think of a way to celebrate Valentine's Day without disrupting lessons? She sighed, and left the Great Hall as every-one else proceeded to do so.

All through the day, the wing-wearing dwarves delivered Valentines. Just before lunchtime, Lily became extremely irritated when her class was interrupted for the twenty-fourth time, and ended up locking the door to the classroom with a quick charm, only unlocking it again when it was time for lunch. She could the dwarves banging on the door and yelling loudly, but frankly, she didn't care.

As she was heading to class after lunch, she heard one of the dwarves singing out a rather horrible Valentine's rhyme. "_…I wish he was mine, he's really divine…" _In the middle of it all, and clearly the one the unfortunate the one the dwarf was reciting to, was Harry. His cheeks had become blushed and he was struggling to pull away from the dwarf, he tripped over his feet and the onlookers were laughing even harder. Lily did not tell them off and yell at them to go to class, as the bell had just rung, but she was too busy standing there with a rather knowing look on her face. "…_the hero who conquered the Dark Lord." _

The dwarf stood aside and let Harry up after he finished his delivery. A rather embarrassed looking Harry picked up his bag, which had split in half sometime during the encounter. One of his ink bottles had cracked open, leaving a huge amount of dark blue ink blotches all over his books.

Since class was meant to begin a few minutes ago, Lily ushered the watching people to their various classes. She watched as Harry gathered his belongings and scampered off to class. Lily smiled at him and turned around to go upstairs. She needed to get up three floors as soon as possible. She disliked being late. With a sudden burst of energy, she raced up the staircase, and onto the second floor hallway. Even though she was running late, something stopped her.

She wasn't sure if it was the ankle-deep water on the floor, the petrified body on the floor, or the fresh blood on the wall retracing new words over the ones Filch has spent ages trying to clean off. "_THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS IS STILL OPEN. IT IS TIME FOR THE MUDBLOODS TO END!" _She wasn't exactly sure what wasn't quite right with this picture, but it made her stop. She felt something cold trickle down her spine. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. She knelt down to see who the petrified person was.

When she turned his body over, she recognised who it was. Nathian Lythdan. The obnoxious boy in her third-year Ravenclaw class.

"P-professor…is h-he alright?" Next to her stood Ginny Weasley. She fitted into the picture quite nicely, holding what seemed to be a dead rooster in her hand.

No, something was definitely not right at all.

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Ok, I'm sorry I haven't updated in…has it really been a month? First I got writer's block. Then I lost my plan. Then I found my plan. Then I found out the plan needed revising. Well, I'm sorry, and I hope it doesn't happen again. (and it shouldn't, since one of my other stories is a chapter away from completion.

Next Chapter: Ginny and Hagrid venture into the forest. A curious Lily follows them. More attacks happen. Lily comes across the diary.


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